Latest swing of power in Senate leaves voters out

By Bill Loughrey

For the Journal-Constitution

Congressional Democrats have been anointed with a victory that may be even more consequential than the elections of 2006 and 2008 —- a filibuster-proof Senate. Combined with the seating of Al Franken from the long-disputed Minnesota election, the defection of Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) removes the last major impediment to enactment of the Democratic legislative agenda.

The 60th vote radically alters the perspective and strategy of both the majority and minority party on the Senate floor —- a legislative forum that senators regard as the "world's greatest deliberative body." With the minority party stripped of its ability to filibuster, the majority party has a decisive advantage.

Americans' cynicism toward their government is likely to increase even further. This crucial triumph was not secured through the ballot box but by the negotiations of a few Washington insiders. Voters in Georgia and New York seemed to be recoiling from granting congressional Democrats more power, drastically reducing their support of Democrats in both run-off and special elections. In the 1980s, U.S. Rep. Phil Gramm changed parties. He resigned his seat and ran in a special election.

By contrast, the American voter will not have a role in the events that grant the Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate. This action reflects the historic trend of having more and more important political decisions made by a Washington isolated from the rest of America.

The American political process is now more one-sided than at any time since the New Deal and the Great Society. The impact of the New Deal was initially restricted by a Supreme Court that provided a counterweight through declaring many initiatives unconstitutional. Subsequently, after FDR's court-packing plan flopped, a coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats provided a check and balance to the proposals of his administration. In the Great Society, no such limitation existed, and the nation has never recovered its competitive position from what many historians now regard as the "Great Disruption."

America is now embarking on the most radical experiment in its history. In the winding down of every previous war or conflict, government spending declined and the deficit was paid down. Under the new federal budget, homeland and national security spending will decline, but these reductions will be more than offset by new federal social programs and bailout funding that will greatly increase the deficit. Federal spending is scheduled to skyrocket from well under 20 percent of the economy to well over 20 percent with the greatest increase in the federal deficit in history.

Except during times of war, federal spending was always less than 5 percent of the American economy —- until the New Deal and Great Depression. George Washington had more workers and slaves on his Mount Vernon estate than he had employees as president. When President John Adams moved the federal government to Washington, only 130 federal employees had to be moved. Thomas Jefferson then actually reduced the role of the federal government. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States in the 1830s he observed: "In spite of anxiously searching for government, one can find it nowhere, and the truth is that it does not, so to speak, exist at all." America grew from occupying a tiny sliver of the East Coast to become the world's greatest economic power by the end of the nineteenth century.

In the 1930s, rapid increases in spending failed to end the Great Depression —- World War II finally wound down America's most cataclysmic economic event. The spending binge of the 1960s resulted in stagnation and the worst decade ever for investors —- the investment returns in the 1970s were lower even than the 1930s.

By contrast, during the 1990s federal spending as a percentage of the total economy was cut every year, which led to a decade of unprecedented economic growth.

President Bush squandered this economic stewardship through the biggest expansion of government since the Great Society, including a prescription drug program for Medicare. He converted projected budget surpluses of $500 billion a year into a trillion dollar annual deficit.

Specter always believed that he had a decisive role to play in the nation's history. He may have achieved this legacy by a single decision. It remains to be seen whether his action will stem the tide of history and lead to a new type of economic growth based on greatly expanded federal spending.