CONGRESS AND PARKINSON'S LAW

Parkinson's Law says, "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." The work to fill in the time is often referred to as "make work."

Thanks to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, that seems to be what's going on in Washington right now. For months the Obama administration had talked about the U.S. running out of money this spring unless the debt limit was raised above the current legal level of $14.3 trillion. Failure to act in a timely way could mean the U.S. defaulting on its financial obligations, bringing on bankruptcy which in turn would lead to an international financial meltdown. Then it was said the spring deadline could be stretched a bit by various methods of juggling of the books. Then last week the Treasury Department reported a greater than expected increase in revenues, extending the debt ceiling deadline to early August. A timely extension since Congress begins a one-month recess/vacation on August 8.

Here is where Parkinson's Law begins to enter the picture. If the spring debt deadline had held, Congress would now be engaged in a bitter partisan dispute about using the debt ceiling issue as a vehicle for forcing more spending cuts on the administration. Within that context extension of the deadline until August has given the administration and Congress time needed to work out an acceptable agreement on the debt-spending issue. Reports are circulating that Vice President Biden, working with a bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers, is cobbling together an agreement that combines raising the debt ceiling with near-term spending cuts and a longer term plan for controlling deficits.

What is important to note is that the Biden group is not dealing with the really contentious issues of reducing the costs of medicare and medicaid, two big drivers of deficit spending. Presumably these would be dealt with in the normal budget process, if there is such a thing anymore. That would put the so-called Ryan budget to end medicare as it has operated for the past 45 years and greatly reducing and restructuring medicaid spending up against the far less drastic budget plan of President Obama. But the reality is that making such big decisions will probably be treated in the normal political way -- put off such contentious decisions until after next year's presidential/congressional elections.

So if Treasury has given more time before a debt crisis appears and the big health care decisions are put off until 2013, what will Congress do between now and August to fill up the time, a la Parkinson's Law? Right now it appears that it will be a period for both Republicans and Democrats to set out some political markers that will please their political bases. The GOP House is already moving fast with its appeal-to-the-base priorities.

After the January 19th House vote to repeal the President's health care reform died in the Democratic Senate, the GOP House last week voted to cut off funding for specific parts of the reform law. Like the January repeal vote, these funding cut off are dead on arrival (DOA) in the Senate. In an appeal to its big business constituency, two bills last week cleared GOP-controlled House committees: one was to delay for 18 months putting provisions of last year's financial reform law into effect to regulate Wall Street manipulation of the securities markets; the second was to weaken the key consumer protection provisions of the legislation. Both are likely to pass the House and be DOA in the Senate. Waiting in the House wings are some anti-abortion proposals favored by the Republicans and their right wing political base.

The House Democrats will make a futile attempt to gain passage of provisions to end some of the tax advantages given to the highly profitable oil industry. There is some support within the GOP to take a look at such tax reforms but the Democratic effort to have these actually passed is likely to fail. A similar effort is likely at some point in the Senate where it will face the 60-vote block to floor consideration; if passed, the cuts would be DOA in the House.

The Senate may use the pre-recess period to begin consideration of an immigration reform plan, a topic being discussed increasingly by Obama. A Senate Democratic effort to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill is likely to run up against the 60-vote obstacle for floor consideration, but the Democrats hope the effort will send a signal to Hispanic voters about who their congressional friends and opponents are. But the GOP may find it necessary to support or appear to support some form of immigration reform legislation to avoid the appearance of simply ignoring Hispanic demands and votes.

So Congress will fill up the expanded time it has before the debt deadline with partisan bills designed to appeal to their respective political bases or, in the case of the Hispanics, would-be recruits to the political base. Some other things such as action on various trade bills may get done but gone are such issues as stimulus spending, job-creation legislation, expiration of extensions of unemployment insurance, etc. The bulk of the time both before and after the August vacation will be filled with DOA political legislative proposals. Parkinson didn't say that the expanded time allowed would be filled with meaningful work, just time filling make-work. In the case of Congress, it will be make-work to serve obvious political agendas.