After a last-minute agreement with congressional leaders this August, President Obama signed into law the Budget Control Act, averting a debt ceiling breach. As part of the deal, the President consented to the creation of a bipartisan “super committee,” charged with slashing $1.5 trillion from America’s ever-swelling deficit. With Congress unable to resolve its fiscal differences, the agreement delegates powers to twelve handpicked members, split between House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats. Any proposal that emerges from this process with the support of a majority of members is guaranteed a swift, up-or-down vote in Congress. Should the process deadlock, however, $1.2 trillion of automatic cuts will hit defense spending and domestic programs like infrastructure spending and education.
Although they may reach a token agreement to mitigate public anger and create the appearance of progress, present polarization and gridlock make it unlikely that the super-committee will solve long-term spending problems. Regardless of whether significant progress is achieved, the fact that such a secret committee remains America’s best hope for fiscal sanity seems only to indicate how dysfunctional our political process has become.
Going for Broke
According to Agnes Bain, government professor at Suffolk University, the fact that the super committee exists indicates, “how seriously the system is broken.” Given the intractable nature of the deficit dispute and the current hyper-partisan atmosphere in Washington, experts see dim prospects for the committee. William Galston, former adviser to President Clinton and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, reports that, “there is spreading pessimism in Washington that the super committee will be able to do more than the bare minimum.”
The committee’s membership would seem to justify the dire predictions. Several members, particularly in the House delegations, are known for their inflexible stands on key issues. Even co-chair Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) enjoys the highly partisan role of chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Four members of the committee also earlier served on President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, better known as Simpson-Bowles; none voted for its deficit-slashing recommendations.
Stuck in Neutral
Deadlock springs from several factors. For political and philosophical reasons, neither side enjoys much incentive to compromise. According to Bain, “the president has tried to govern from the center since he was inaugurated, and all he has got for his trouble is a couple of bloody noses.” As Bain explains, Democrats face the need to placate liberals who feel that the party has conceded too much in past negotiations, while Republicans are doubling down on their message of fiscal discipline, confident that it will resonate in 2012.
Humphrey Taylor, chairman of the Harris Poll, notes that the political calculus for Democrats may make them especially averse to any agreement. While both parties could face a backlash from extreme supporters should they reach any compromise, Taylor argues, “Republicans who are angry with Obama…will still come out and vote,” while Democratic intensity “could be hurt if [supporters] feel that Obama and the committee have given away too much.” Noting that “lawmaking under conditions of divided party control tends to be slow,” Yale political science professor David Mayhew likewise fears that, “it might not be possible to do much before the election.”
The positions of President Obama and House Speaker Boehner illustrate the partisan divide. Both have staked out positions that apparently make compromise impossible; Boehner has declared that tax increases are off the table, while Obama has vowed that entitlement cuts must coincide with tax increases on the wealthy. Some might compare Obama and Boehner unfavorably with the bickering Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. However, Mayhew observes that the 1997 budget deal happened, “only after an intervening election that showed that neither side could knock out the other.”
Moving Forward
Nevertheless, although most committee members may not be inclined to negotiate, one or two pragmatists could break a deadlock. Experts name Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) as potential dealmakers, who could resolve a committee otherwise split on partisan lines. Another particularly intriguing figure is Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), a staunch conservative so averse to automatic defense cuts that he may compromise to avoid them. Party leaders will also retain considerable influence, and, while they may take inflexible stances in public, Galston suggests that “the leadership, left to itself, could probably make more progress” without pressure from more ideologically rigid caucus members.
Indeed, there exists precedent for such a deal. Mayhew notes that, “As a practical matter, all the big money management deals of the past have been struck by small groups of leadership.” In 1988, for example, Congress gave special powers to a similarly small commission to shut down unneeded military bases, which helped resolve a controversial topic. There may also be political rationale for a new willingness to reach an agreement. Mayhew observes, “The Republicans seem to have gotten chastened by their bad polls of the summer. They need to get some standing back.” Voters are disgusted with Congressional gridlock, and while they may dislike some elements of any agreement, inaction may prove more infuriating.
Do Supercommittees Stink?
Even if public pressure ultimately prods the super committee toward compromising, it is troubling that major problems can only be addressed through such a secretive process. Committee members meet behind closed doors and are silent about their deliberations. Other members of Congress are kept in the dark throughout the process; even if the committee creates a bill, other congressmen cannot offer amendments. While this setup intends to insulate the super-committee from external influences, it is unclear how independent its members truly are. The party leaders who selected them have some expectations of how each member would vote. Furthermore, lobbyists have access to the process; nearly one hundred registered lobbyists are former staffers for the twelve members. More fundamentally, the inability of Congress to function without delegating its responsibilities to a secret committee speaks volumes about the health of our political system.
This lack of openness is arguably necessitated by the increasing polarization of Congress, the media, and even society at large. Recently, for instance, a dispute over arcane rules hamstrung the Senate, ostensibly the world’s greatest deliberative body, causing Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to sharply curtail debate. If legislators cannot resolve seemingly minor procedural issues through normal means, they would likely not make much headway on the deficit. For all its many shortcomings, the super committee may be America’s best hope. While negotiations may not produce substantive cuts, deals behind closed doors are better than no deals at all.
Humza Bokhari ’14 is a Staff Writer. Daniel Lynch ’15 is a Contributing Writer.
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