GOP LEADERS DO THE HULA

To this blogger, the elections have again highlighted a central, nonpartisan congressional problem -- that is, no matter who controls the Congress there is a structural problem that defies major changes in spending policy. This post is not to spell out with any procedural precision how Congress' structural impediments to change will operate with any specific proposal. Rather, it is to array the moving parts that are imbedded in the congressional process and make both campaign and post-election promises difficult to achieve.

Early in the primary elections season, the media latched on to the anti-incumbency theme to explain voter discontent and the Tea Party as the vehicle for this discontent. To the anti-incumbent theme, I said, "humbug". Since Tuesday much has been written and stated by the analysts and pundits about the Tea Party and its wins and losses in the House and Senate and what this means in moving the Republican establishment farther to the right. But the fact is that the power structure in both the House and Senate remains in the hands of long-time incumbents who are not easily nudged in a new direction. In both chambers that power structure is the party leadership and the chairpersons of the committees and subcommittees where the legislative work is done; in this case a new Republican power structure in the House and a continuing Democratic power structure in the Senate, however diminished in votes. While the party leadership has been more assertive in seeking to control the content and flow of policy in recent years, the presumed new House Speaker John Boehner has made a point of saying he wants to decentralize some of that power, presumably returning some of it to the committees and subcommittees.

That leads us to one of the core issues of the Tea Party movement since its beginning in early 2009 and now echoed by establishment party leaders -- a commitment to cutting federal spending, however unspecified, and reducing the deficit in both the near and long term. Doing something about this issue will provide an early encounter with reality.

It was noted above that the power structure is controlled by long-time incumbents, the only change being in the House where that power will switch from Democrats to Republicans. But whether control is by Democrats or Republicans, the long established and continuing problem is the existence of policy "iron triangles" or policy subsystems. These triangles/subsystems are made up of congressional committees/subcommittees, concerned interest groups, and related bureaucracies who dominate policymaking in their particular areas. Committees are chaired by persons who have built up seniority on the committee and they have that seniority because they are repeatedly re-elected from safe districts and thus are not easily nudged to accommodate the latest ideological outbreak. For example, in farm subsidy policy, the iron triangle includes members of the Agriculture Committees, the corresponding appropriations subcommittees, farm interest groups in general and crop-specific organizations, and bureaucratic units within the Agriculture Department who administer the policy, write the regulation for that policy, and spend the money.

There is an iron triangle for every policy area you can think of. If an entirely new policy area opens up, a new iron triangle will form. This was the case in the mid-l960s when a new anti-tobacco, health oriented subsystem formed after enactment of legislation requiring warning labels on cigarette packages. That subsystem became the political base for further legislation and regulations on a wide range of anti-tobacco policies. The power of these triangles grows as their policy area expands and/or they have more money; their power shrinks when the opposite occurs. Thus, those with the biggest stake in the game, the triangle/subsystem partners are likely to oppose any authorizing legislation or appropriations decisions that run counter to their interests. Further, these triangles don't fight alone. For example, if the farm subsidy interests are threatened, they may seek a quid pro quo deal with urban oriented constituencies concerned with the food stamp program which falls within the same agriculture legislative subsystem. And if necessary, they will make mutually beneficial deals with legislators from another iron triangle. The point here is that these iron triangles are fundamental structural stumbling blocks to major policy changes, and sometimes even minor ones.

In short, in the opinion of this blogger and contrary to what Boehner and Senate Minority Leader McConnell may say, we are not on the threshold of a new millenium in congressional fiscal policymaking or a return to any basic principles of the Republican party. The basic principle at stake is power. We are, in fact, simply re-entering the long dark tunnel of the congressional policy process and the only difference, at least in the House, is which party is carrying the dim flashlight so others cannot see in. Or, to use a different metaphor, the American public must remember the first rule of the hula dance. The story is told in the movement of the hands, not the hips. Right now what we are getting is a lot of hip action.