Republicans always full of empty talk about efficiency and “running it like a business.” They swear they’ll give us good governance and shrink the federal Leviathan. What hogwash. They can barely keep the lights on, and not always that.
In any legislature, you have to keep things going. Sure, you probably have other goals you think are important, but you have to finish basic governance before you get to go off and make your fancy new health plan. Or a border wall. Whatever excites you. Anyway, do that core job first. Unfortunately, that part gets lost.
Look at budgeting. Budgets are critical. The federal government is a vast and ponderous enterprise with millions of moving parts. We buy everything in bulk, and it all has to work together. That takes significant planning to look over what they’ll need for years to come, and then find ways to ensure it all works when you need it. I’ve seen how it works from the inside. No, it isn’t always perfect. But for slow and careful things, they do a pretty good job. There are highly dedicated people running most of it, and everything they do is overseen, reviewed, and tested in the agencies and, sometimes, even in court.
Because of all that, governments and contracting aren’t anybody’s version of ‘quick.’ Our agencies need a lot of lead time to function well. At the best of times, they struggle to keep up with changing times. This is both hard, and delicate work.
That’s why having real budgets matter. With an approved budget, a government entity can put out requests for bids, examine the responses for the best deal, and then commit money. The government almost always gets what it needs at a low price (swear to god), and the contractors trade lower profit margins for the low business risk of working for the U.S. government.
[As an aside, that’s why the Republicans’ periodic threats to default on the federal debt are frightening and insane. Doing that would poison the confidence that undergirds our federal financial and business dealings. They give us good deals and accept lower interest rates because the U.S. is rock-steady. If governments, institutions, and corporations see that the federal government acting like a deadbeat, every business will have to dial that unexpected risk into all their future dealings. People won’t buy as many of our bonds, and only at higher interest rates. Prices will go up across the board.]Anyway, so far, Republicans are primarily using budgets for their brinkmanship, but even that’s really bad for us. Continuing resolutions keep the lights on, but they’re terrible for business. Agencies can’t plan anything when they can’t commit money. The best they have is doing the same old stuff in the same old ways, with short-term contract extensions for long-term work, and long-term coordination falls off the back end completely. Forget any improvements or new services. Yes, there are things an agency can do around the edges to keep things going more or less smoothly, but long-term planning – by legal necessity – goes on hold.
This year we had troubles. The Republican-controlled House couldn’t agree on funding bills they could pass through the Republican-controlled Senate and signed by the Republican President. They held every institution, and they still couldn’t manage the budget. Not a good sign. They shut the government. Democrats actually took control of the House on the 13th day of that shutdown.
I won’t point fingers, but people made compromises and budget deals. After stopgap spending bills and pointless extensions, the 2019 budget finally started working. But the end of the 2019 fiscal year was October 1st, and the government didn’t have a deal for 2020. Worse, this time we had Trump. He’d swoop in and divebomb whatever negotiations looked the most promising. Maybe he needed distractions.
So, instead of a real budget, Congress passed a short-term deal in September that extended the deadline out to November 21st. We saw 119 Republicans vote to close the government anyway. Because that’s what they do now. Anyway, thanks to the Democrats and some of the Republicans, the lights stayed on.
The extension ends on Friday. Big surprise: there’s no budget deal in sight. The Democrat-controlled House passed tons of new legislation, mind you, including funding bills. Almost every measure died on Mitch McConnell’s desk. McConnell chortles to his cronies about it, so it appears that’s what they like about him. Again, Republicans refuse to govern.
So now, Congress is looking to adopt another dreary, short-term continuing resolution. The deal will probably pass, pushing the deadline out to December 21st. Which puts it right in the middle of the Impeachment. So, I’m not hopeful that will end well. I’m expecting another Republican-fueled shutdown.
Really, Republicans are just terrible at governance. Their ‘policies’ are rigidly ideological stunts. “Build The Wall!” they roar, indifferent to its impossibility. I’m not sure they even understand how this is supposed to work.
Anyway, that’s too depressing. Let’s move to the economy, something even Trump hasn’t messed up too badly. Yet. Lord knows he’s trying.
Even the economy is better under Democrats. And it isn’t just now and then. Here’s what Hillary Clinton said during her 2016 campaign:
I think it’s important to just kind of get rid of some of the myths that you hear from the other side. Starting with a fact that our economy and our country does better when we have a Democrat in the White House. … There’s a lot of evidence that when we have a Democrat in the White House, unemployment is lower, income is higher, and even the stock market is higher. But when you have a Republican in the White House you are four times more likely to have a recession.
— Hillary Clinton, Oct. 14, 2015
FactCheck.org reviewed those claims a few days later. And they agreed with Clinton. They pointed to the study “Presidents and the U.S. Economy: An Econometric Exploration.” Turns out, not only do Democrats manage the government better, the economy booms, too. And it isn’t a small difference. Unemployment usually drops under Democrats, and it rises under Republicans. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rises almost twice as much under Democratic administrations. Even income levels were different, although the researchers concluded it wasn’t statistically significant. On the other hand, the stock market rise more than twice as much under Democrats than under Republicans, which is a big deal.
All our evidence shows that Republicans can’t manage the economy well. They can’t govern or legislate successfully. Republicans can’t make the agencies efficient or better, and they can’t even keep the lights on all the time. I can’t see why any would want them in charge.
And I’m doubly confused about the rich. Why on Earth would anyone wealthy vote Republican when it costs them money? I watched President George W. Bush (43) hamstring the economy and drive stock prices fallow for a decade. And it didn’t matter. Rich people and businesses supported him unconditionally. Are Republicans, big businesses, and the super-rich really that stupid?
No, please don’t answer that.
