One of the most notable aspects of the recent Secret Service scandal revolves around money and the state of Congress.
It is clear the Secret Service has been starving for funds. It has not been able to hire enough qualified agents, and it has been constantly short-staffed. Given that the agency is stretched thin, still handling its older counterfeiting responsibilities and new homeland security missions, protecting the president is becoming harder to do.
Insufficient funding is not an excuse for the mistakes that allowed an intruder to enter the East Room, but it has been a relevant factor in the sloppiness the nation has witnessed.
This budgetary problems of the Secret Service are one small, significant effect of the contentious and gridlocked political era in which we live. Congress has been remarkably unproductive by almost every measure. Legislators have not ensured sufficient funding for many of our existing government programs, let alone for the creation of anything new. Congress is on track to pass less legislation than any other in modern history. Talk about a “Do Nothing” Congress is a popular theme.
Yet pundits and politicians make a mistake when they simply blame this problem on partisan polarization and claim that Republicans and Democrats need to stop bickering and get along. The research is clear that everything is not equal: The Republican Party bears more responsibility for the failure of Congress to produce bills than the Democrats.
In 2012, Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann made this case in their book, “It’s Even Worse than It Looks,” which shows the GOP has been much more willing to employ “obstructionist” tactics such as the filibuster and sequestration threats.
This imbalance shouldn’t be a surprise. The GOP has been under the control of an aggressive generation of Republicans skilled at tying up the legislative process. These Republicans have been determined to undercut the power of liberals on Capitol Hill and shrewd enough to understand that by “doing nothing” in Congress, things go their way.
Democrats are not blameless. They filibuster with the best of their colleagues and obstruct legislation as well as appointments when Republicans have been in the White House. Democrats also accept the broken campaign finance system that empowers lobbyists and interest groups to protect the status quo.
But congressional Republicans are more willing than their counterparts to use existing procedural tools to stop productivity. Democrats have more to lose when government doesn’t work. The concept of a “Do Nothing” Congress is a myth.
When Congress doesn’t take action on major issues of the day, it is in fact taking action — action often biased toward conservative goals. If government agencies don’t receive proper funding, those agencies won’t be able to do their jobs well. If initiatives such as the minimum wage are not updated to meet current needs, they lose their value. If the federal government doesn’t devote more resources to problems like climate change, government regulation doesn’t become part of the way in which the nation deals with those issues; they will be left to the free market, for better or worse.
Democrats have a huge stake in the midterm elections and in 2016. Though a Democrat has inhabited the White House, congressional Republicans have been enormously effective at using legislative power to constrain his impact. Until Democrats can start to really weaken the hold of Republicans on the House of Representatives — and to create enough political pressure on younger Republicans to embrace a more cooperative style of politics — the conservative character of Capitol Hill won’t change.
Julian E. Zelizer, a CNN contributor, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.
