Governing by Crisis
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton puts in stark terms an Obama Administration impulse I find odious:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience Friday “never waste a good crisis,” and highlighted the opportunity of rebuilding economies in a greener, less energy-intensive way.
Highlighting Europe’s unease the day after Russia warned that gas flows via Ukraine might be halted, she also condemned the use of energy as a political lever.
Clinton told young Europeans at the European Parliament that global economic turmoil provided a fresh opening. “Never waste a good crisis … Don’t waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security,” she said.
Never waste a good crisis, eh? As an empirical matter, it is difficult to cite an example in which sweeping legislative changes, rushed into law under the cover of a crisis, produced better outcomes than a slower, more deliberative attempt to effect the people’s will and improve policy outcomes.
Indeed, during the Bush Administration, liberals were quick to object not merely to the substance of the Iraq War or the Patriot Act, but to the process in which they came into being — the insufficient time to identify flaws in Administration plans, popular support predicated on fear of inaction as much as confidence in the proposed action, and a rhetorical atmosphere that painted even mild critics as endangering American safety and prosperity.
It is foolhardy to build major policy changes on a foundation so shaky. Once the immediate crisis passes, so does the majority support predicated on fear and trusting one’s leader in a time of crisis. The citizens feel as though their trust was violated, especially as idiotic flaws in the original program become evident. These flaws are the inevitable product of marginalizing critics in the rush to do something before it’s too late, and the realization that there were critics who identified all the foolhardy provisions prior to their approval leads a polity to distrust the whole political class, and swing wildly between contradictory positions. Thus you have a war like Iraq that a majority of Americans once supported, and that is now regarded even by many former supporters as a foolhardy enterprise sold on a lie.
Of course, it was always unlikely that the Obama Administration would resist the temptation to exploit times of crisis to advance whatever ambitious policy ends they already had in mind. But it is nevertheless a shame that they are doing so. The Hillary Clinton quote above sums up the opportunistic mindset, and a line from President Obama’s State of the Union speech exemplifies how the mindset manifests itself:
As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by President’s Day that would put people back to work and put money in their pockets. Not because I believe in bigger government — I don’t. Not because I’m not mindful of the massive debt we’ve inherited — I am. I called for action because the failure to do so would have cost more jobs and caused more hardship.
This is nonsense. Barack Obama does believe in bigger government — government that achieves universal health care, that improves education for lower income kids, that spurs a revolution in green technology and reduces greenhouse gasses, that pours more money into federal agencies like NIH, that improves the nation’s transportation infrastructure, that increases the size of the military, etc. etc. etc.
Rather than do the hard work of convincing Americans that these would be worthwhile investments even if we weren’t in an economic crisis — that they are worth higher taxes or higher deficits or both — he pretends that it is only an unprecedented financial crisis makes the spending contained in the stimulus bill prudent.
Well. It’s going to work, for now, and perhaps a quick economic recovery will enable President Obama to avoid ever having to convince a majority of Americans about the substance of his agenda, and it will survive on its own inertia. What I regard as more likely is that our economic recovery will be slow, that the crisis mentality will nevertheless pass, that the stimulus bill will be shown to have major idiotic flaws inevitable when legislation is passed so quickly that no one can claim to have read it, that Americans once willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt will suddenly realize that some of his critics had a point, and that Americans will find themselves in the maddening position of paying for irreversible policies that they soured on long ago, all due to the rapidity, opportunism and ambition with which they were passed.
Would that we had leaders who behaved modestly in times of crisis, but if a guy whose background is rife with community organizing and consensus building cannot bring himself to enact his agenda the right way, despite campaigning as someone keen on reforming the means by which the executive wields power, I’m doubtful we’ll see such a president anytime soon.
First, regarding stimulus efforts, speed is a virtue. Acting quickly is more important than getting all the elements of the plan just right.
Second, there is a general perception on the left that only during a crisis is major political reform a realistic possibility. “Do[ing] the hard work of convincing Americans” sounds good, but it never actually happens: without a crisis to force the issue, inertia and special interests dominate any reform effort. For the left to not take advantage of crises would amount to unilateral disarmament.
For my part, I find this perception overly pessimistic. I think the left’s political intuition is warped by its experience with Bush and the Iraq war. But they aren’t entirely wrong either. You need to engage more seriously with the possibility that your preferred method of policymaking might not be structurally feasible.
— salacious · Mar 8, 12:58 AM · #
Sorry, you’re off base in this one.
Your points against governing by crisis are well taken, and as you point out Bush’s practice of doing this is one of the many ways in which he failed. But – that’s not what Obama is doing.
The reason for treating the economy as an emergency is that, according to a preponderance of economic thought, it is an emergency. If the stimulus economists think necessary is used in part to improve our public transportation or build a few schools, so much the better – it’s hardly a transformation of public policy. You’re writing as if cap-and-trade AND single payer health insurance were part of the stimulus bill.
For the more far reaching policy goals, those are what Obama was elected to do and he appears to be working hard to bring together a coalition that can make it happen. Irresponsible Republican obstructionism is the real obstacle to doing things the “right way” on these issues. Absent the filibuster, I feel fairly confident we have some proposals, a lot of debate, compromise and horse trading, and an up or down vote.
— peter · Mar 8, 01:08 AM · #
Conor your intelligent, well informed person but this post sounds like a naif wrote it. Since when has major change ever occurred except in times crisis? It is intrinsic to the nature of the government we have.
Our government was set up with extremely powerful veto points. These veto points are so strong that changing anything from the status quo is incredibly difficult. Generally these veto points, such as the judiciary and the Senate, are profoundly anti-democratic and purposely so.
So said another way, our government is constructed to make it so difficult to implement legislation which is incredibly popular with the general public that the only way a politician can change the status quo is through a crisis.
Now popular certainly doesn’t mean right, nor does crisis mean good legislation is passed. What I am saying is that crisis is the only practical path for ever achieving a change to the political and legal status quo and that if you want to change that mentality at a minimum you would need to present a viable alternative to implement legislative changes (get rid of the filibuster for example?).
More broadly speaking, your post seems to imply an overly romantic view of the voting public. You act as if there’s this reasonable, well-informed polity that if given the appropriate time and space to debate a politician’s ideas, will come up with a pretty decent policy proposal. Or at the very least something less bad, then legislation passed using the fear of a crisis.
In other words, you seem to think at a minimum that the voting public is something like what Mathew Yglesias describes:
“In this image, the public is full of people with all kinds of opinions. And if you ask them questions, you could discern their opinions. And if you identify things that public opinion favors, and that you also deem defensible policy goals, and then go do these things, the public’s opinion of you will go up. And that’s how politics works!”
Yet as Yglesias goes onto point out, that’s not how the voting public is in reality. Not even close.
“Except the evidence suggests that that isn’t actually how politics works. The evidence is that public opinion is largely incoherent, that voters do much more rationalizing than reasoning, and that people have little information about what politicians are doing or saying anyway. What matters for political sense is a few big, crude factors.”
— Joseph · Mar 8, 01:22 AM · #
Jos: American republican theory doesn’t require an extremely rational voting public, still less one with detailed knowledge. It holds that the consent of the governed is necessary to give legitimacy to policy; and that our experiment in which representatives deliberate and we keep a distant eye on them can at least potentially work, because people’s long-term rationality is greater than their short-term rationality.
Crisis-based politics (promoting panic to pursue policy goals) is an attempt to short-circuit rational deliberation by representatives and rational evaluation by the public. Presidents attempt it because they are frustrated by the system’s checks on short-term irrationality, and because they assume that those they trust to write and implement policy are extremely rational.
Many successful Presidents, such as Washington, Coolidge, Eisenhower, and (sort of) Reagan, have generally eschewed crisis-mongering. FDR was our most famous crisis-monger. His imitators have gotten mixed results. JFK was pretty disastrous but his reputation survives due to his martyrdom. One’s opinion of LBJ’s policy spree will depend on whether one believes that the Great Society had merits that outweighed the drawbacks that accompanied the rapid-fire change. Jimmy Carter’s moral equivalent of war is not remembered fondly, and Clinton’s health crisis-mongering was a disaster while his successful policies were enacted quietly or promoted on their own merits. It is hardly self-evident that deliberative policy-making is doomed to failure.
— Aaron · Mar 8, 03:00 AM · #
If things stay screwed up, it’s not because Obama was too bold with stimulus, it’s because he was too hesitant with the banks.
If you write a post like this without using the word “filibuster”, that’s a clue you’ve missed something.
As far as convincing a majority of Americans of his agenda, that happened in November.
Indeed, during the Bush Administration, liberals were quick to object not merely to the substance of the Iraq War or the Patriot Act, but to the process in which they came into being — the insufficient time to identify flaws in Administration plans, popular support predicated on fear of inaction as much as confidence in the proposed action, and a rhetorical atmosphere that painted even mild critics as endangering American safety and prosperity.
If Democrats after in 9/11 then were behaving like Republicans now, they would have responded to the Patriot Act with a counter-proposal of creating Kucinich’s Department of Peace, filibustering any reform of intelligence and security whatsoever, while refusing to distance themselves from leftist commentators who said they hoped Bush would fail to protect America. If Dems had done all that, Bush would have been entirely justified, and I would have voted for him a second time.
Also, it’s kind of disingenuous to bring up Iraq, purely a crisis of choice.
The Obama pattern, before and after the election, has been to play nice when the other guy plays nice. The other guy isn’t playing nice right now.
— Consumatopia · Mar 8, 04:48 AM · #
pwned by Consumatopia. Also, Nope. Even in the absence of this crisis, Obama would be making exactly the same arguments, and just as strenuously I think.
— mb · Mar 8, 05:26 AM · #
I’m unclear on why the bad behavior of Republicans — which I’m happy to acknowledge — is very relevant here. Am I to understand that if the GOP is behaving badly, I’ve got no right to complain about procedural politics that I regard as flawed?
— Conor Friedersdorf · Mar 8, 05:32 AM · #
It’s relevant because both sides behaving badly strongly suggests that “governing by crisis” is a structural feature of the American political system, rather than bad behavior by individual actors/parties.
— salacious · Mar 8, 08:42 AM · #
I wrote that post late last night and I don’t really like the tone this morning. Apologies.
Republican bad behavior certainly justifies Obama accusing Republicans of behaving badly. But that’s not the only justification being offered here. Others include:
* We actually are in a time-critical crisis, and there seems to be consensus on this point across the political spectrum, even if there is disagreement on the nature of the crisis. It was a frequent talking point Republicans used against the stimulus that that too much of the spending didn’t take effect until later years and therefore wasn’t timely enough to be stimulative.
* The fruits of deliberation are not impressive right now (the Senate compromise stimulus made difficult to defend changes like reducing aid to the states and money for school construction, both obviously necessary and stimulative. Slower and more deliberative seems to mean slower and weaker.)
* Dems are being blocked by a minority of 41 Senators representing low population states, after fighting and winning House, Senate, Electoral College and popular vote majorities, and retaining 60+ presidential approval rating.
* The reason that structural changes to health care and energy have failed is that people feared losing what they have now. Therefore it not only makes good political theater to point out that what we have now is in great danger, it’s also a soundly logical argument.
* If Obama plays nice with Republicans and passes weaker bills, come 2010/2012 if things still suck nobody’s gonna want to listen to Obama complain that he let Republicans weaken his bills to be a nice guy.
— Consumatopia · Mar 8, 05:50 PM · #
Sadly, badly-behaving Republicans don’t excuse the Democrats from the responsibilities of having to govern, which means that they have to figure out ways to enact an agenda that don’t rely on an opposition party that limits itself to good-faith behavior.
So, yes. You have really no right to complain about Democrats using the only options left them by Republicans who refuse to participate in good faith.
— Chet · Mar 9, 02:32 AM · #
“* We actually are in a time-critical crisis, and there seems to be consensus on this point across the political spectrum, even if there is disagreement on the nature of the crisis.”
This is completely wrong. There is NOT consensus on the idea of an “economic crisis.” There are many economists and individuals who see the current deleveraging as a necessary and healthy reaction by the markets to what was an unecessary and unhealthy market condition: the housing and financial bubble. So legislators who push through bad policy to tackle a crisis that might not be a crisis strictly because they think it is a crisis might actually make it a real crisis.
“* The fruits of deliberation are not impressive right now (the Senate compromise stimulus made difficult to defend changes like reducing aid to the states and money for school construction, both obviously necessary and stimulative. Slower and more deliberative seems to mean slower and weaker.)”
An even better example for why we should let the MARKETS determine the course versus policy makers. Government is inherently worse at reacting to market conditions then the market. The slow, deliberative process that is supposed to protect us from authoritarian overreach should never be taken for granted or dismissed.
“* Dems are being blocked by a minority of 41 Senators representing low population states, after fighting and winning House, Senate, Electoral College and popular vote majorities, and retaining 60+ presidential approval rating.”
I have a good idea: let’s let California and New York run our country! They have the most people. Oh wait…what’s that? Their state governments are drowning in debt and collapsing?
Too bad the GOP is made up of all low population states like Texas.
“* The reason that structural changes to health care and energy have failed is that people feared losing what they have now. Therefore it not only makes good political theater to point out that what we have now is in great danger, it’s also a soundly logical argument.”
You automatically assume that because a system is less than desirable – such as health care insurance – that government control will make it better. Not a logically sound argument in my view (just look at Medicare and tell me with a straight face government can run a healthcare policy.) Let’s just say we disagree there.
“* If Obama plays nice with Republicans and passes weaker bills, come 2010/2012 if things still suck nobody’s gonna want to listen to Obama complain that he let Republicans weaken his bills to be a nice guy.”
Things are still gonna relatively suck next year – specifically in the financial sector. Macroeconomic metrics will eventually improve though – you can’t keep the market down forever.
However, we will not know how much the current Obama policies suck until he is gone. Political suckiness is always a lagging indicator.
— mattc · Mar 9, 11:35 AM · #
Rather than do the hard work of convincing Americans that these would be worthwhile investments even if we weren’t in an economic crisis
That is hard work indeed, since the vast majority of Americans wouldn’t spend the time necessary to understand a rigorous rather than rhetorical case for The Newest and Greatest Deal of All.
I agree with you that it’s kind of impolitic to admit the wonders of crisis exploitation. But the crime’s in the admission, not the act. Given the nature of democratic politics, a consensus that “something must be done” is a rare gift, even when coupled with danger.
Also, the theoretical foundations are sound: degrees of freedom multiply exponentially as a system falls towards criticality. Since that is a fact of living systems such as ours, it’s worth assimilating into your political paradigm no matter where you stand.
— JA · Mar 9, 01:05 PM · #
Conor:
I think this is a very interesting post.
What I think you’re highlightling here is not that Obama is acting especially dishonestly (for a politician) or that he is acting in a manner that he does not honestly believe is in the best interest of the country, but that he is hubristic. I think that you think a more balanced assessment of history should lead him to seek and embrace criticism.
But what if his job is narrower than this? What if the competitive system is what creates critical balance and his job is push as hard as he can for his side of the argument (like a defense attorney who’s job it is to push for acquital)? This seems to me to be the nature of the critcisms of your post.
My response would be that in a situation in which the balance between political forces was temporarily grossly imbalanced, a truly far-seeing (and probably most important) self-possessed statesman would purposely not seek maximum advantage, but instead to do this balancing on behalf of the country and the temporarily lame political opposition. I think that presenting this aura to the electorate was very shrewd politics (and, to some extent, of course, the luck of the appearance of the man meeting the moment).
Obama not actually behaving this way once in office seems to me to be the source of this frustration. Though this is a pretty mild criticism, since it just classes him (in this respect) as a typical politican rather than a statesman.
— Jim Manzi · Mar 9, 01:47 PM · #
Jim, you write:
In the “Nemesis is hatched from the egg of Victory” vein, this lecture by Bill Bradley on our missed opportunities with post-Soviet Russia is a great listen.
Such a lesson should travel.
— JA · Mar 9, 02:00 PM · #