Paralysis in Washington

For two centuries, American democracy has often served as a model. It is now threatened by paralysis. The United States Congress seems to have become an enormous machine for producing paperwork from which nothing important ever results. Two major reforms are in the process of evisceration. The first concerns health care. President Barack Obama must lay out new concessions today in order to pass his bill. The second concerns financial regulation. The independent consumer protection agency the president wanted will ultimately be a subdivision of the central bank, that Federal Reserve that nevertheless demonstrated over the last few years its ability to be overpowered by the financial industry. Since his arrival in the White House, Obama has succeeded in passing one major law: his stimulus plan. But that was in the first month of his presidency and to combat a crisis of exceptional magnitude. The last time these circumstances came about was in 1933.

The paralysis in the Capitol is attributed to the inexperience of the president facing a Congress packed with seasoned veterans of parliamentary procedure — that may be true. It is also explained by Americans’ instinctive reluctance toward public initiatives, and by the hardening of the divide between Republicans and Democrats — these explanations play a role. But the major cause of the paralysis is found elsewhere, in the combination of three characteristics of the American system. First, the Constitution is a presidential system, in which the executive branch and the legislative branch cannot impose anything on one another. The only absolute power of each is the ability to block the other. Next, there is so much freedom of parliamentary obstruction that it cannot be overcome except by a super-majority of 60 percent. The Democrats no longer have this rare majority, since the loss in January of the Senate seat long occupied by Ted Kennedy. Finally, and this is the source of the growing paralysis of the system, lobbying groups are getting better and better at controlling the parliamentary process with more and more resources. Last year, despite the crisis, lobbying expenditures broke all records, nearing $10 billion, according to some estimates. Most often, it’s also a matter of blocking change over there. The last time Americans were affected by this constitutional machinery was in 1917. Parliamentary obstruction almost prevented President Woodrow Wilson from deciding on the United States’ entry into the war. Under current conditions, you might wonder if it would have ever happened.