Ezra Klein on the power of Congress
This piece by Ezra Klein may describe the way the power of Congress used to work. But it certainly isn’t the way it’s worked during the Obama administration.
How is Klein wrong? Let me count the ways. One:
The real power in American politics resides in Congress, not in the presidency.
People say the president has the power to set the agenda, and it’s true. But presidents only set agendas they think Congress might pass, or at least consider. The president leads ”” but only where he thinks Congress will follow.
It’s Congress that writes bills and Congress that passes them. It’s Congress that can spend money and declare war. Congress, with a sufficient majority, could govern aggressively without the president’s cooperation ”” they simply need to overturn his vetoes.
“Simply?” Does Klein have a clue how many times in the 20th-21st centuries the Republican Party has had enough members of Congress to override a Democratic president’s vetoes without a very significant number of Democrats joining in? I’ll give him the answer: Zero. Usually when a party is very strong in Congress—and that party is usually the Democratic Party—the president has been from the same party. FDR’s Congresses are an excellent example of the latter phenomenon—they were overwhelmingly Democratic, but FDR was a Democrat, too.
The three times Democrats have been really close to controlling 2/3 of Congress when a Republican is president, and have only needed a small number of Republicans to join them in order to override a presidential veto, have been during the Ford administration (Ford, having been appointed, was an atypical president), the latter years of Reagan’s administration, and during Bush 1’s term (the Democratic majority was stronger in the House than the Senate for both Reagan and Bush I). If you want to see which vetoes by presidents have been overridden by Congress, take a look at this chart, which indicates it’s much more common to override vetoes by Republican presidents than by Democratic ones.
Two:
Conversely, there’s little the president can do without congressional cooperation. When the president proposes an agenda that Congress refuses to consider then, like the tree in the forest, no one really cares whether it makes a sound. Anyone remember the health-reform plan that was the centerpiece of President George W. Bush’s 2006 State of the Union?
I guess that used to be true. In general (although not always), presidents had more respect for the principle of separation of powers, and more fear of what the public would do if they overstepped the usual bounds. Obama has demonstrated no such concerns. He has explicitly said, over and over, if Congress doesn’t do it, he will. And that’s exactly what he’s done.
Three:
[Paul] Ryan doesn’t want to be team captain [i.e. president]. He wants to be the guy preparing the legislation the next Republican president will sign into law.
At least Klein acknowledges a bit of reality here: it would take a Republican president for the Republican Congress to get anything accomplished. If a Democrat is elected, Paul Ryan can plan all he wants but his plans will probably come to naught. What are the chances of a Republican being elected? I doubt Klein thinks they’re very good.
My first reaction was that Klein is just another clueless tool. But upon reflection, I think it more likely that this is a preemptive hit on the new Republican Congress, the purpose of which is to set the narrative; it’s the Republican Congress’s fault not ‘powerless’ Obama’s for anything that might go wrong till Jan 2017.
http://www.thefire.org/ezra-klein-gets-wrong-yes-means-yes-law-california/
Acknowledges a bit of reality?
Do people even realize who Ezra Journolist Klein is and what part he plays in the Left’s propaganda apparatus?
Laws against rape is great Ezra, if it puts innocent people in jail since it deters bad behavior that way?
The Ezra behind the Journolist hidden Leftist/AP intel network of informants and PR manipulators?
The list probably goes on with the stuff they know, but we don’t.
“It’s Congress that writes bills and Congress that passes them.”
Unless the president is sufficiently frustrated that they don’t pass the bills he wants. In that case, he’s allowed to write and ‘pass’ his own.
If people didn’t vote the way Reid told them to, he would get his hired thugs and shoot them out of his state for it.
Ezra Klein is an idiot and a progressive ideologue.
Vox reminds me of Kenneth Branaugh’s character in Harry Potter: smug, superficial, inept, and fully half the population sees through him immediately while the other half swoons.