A Consequential Congress The 115th has the best record of center-right reform since 1994-1996.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-consequential-congress-1541114048
Americans love to hate Congress, and no wonder given the careerists and poseurs in both parties. But some Congresses matter more than others, and the 115th has accomplished more useful conservative reform than any since the first Newt Gingrich years of 1995-1996.
Democrats won’t admit it for partisan reasons, and neither will some of the perpetually angry on the right. But the GOP’s narrow Senate majority of 52 seats and then 51 has turned out to be more consequential and conservative than the 55-seat GOP majority of 2005-2006, the last time Republicans controlled both Houses and the Presidency.
The looming election is a useful moment to review the tape on the successes and disappointments, and consider the stakes of a Democratic House, Senate or both.
• Tax Reform. Republicans broke the economic logjam of the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, and the new 21% rate with 100% business expensing has helped to lift the U.S. economy to a higher growth plane and again made it the most competitive.
The individual reforms were more about passing out tax cuts or credits to everyone, though millions pay no income taxes. Plenty of voters still aren’t convinced they received a cut even if they did, thanks to a mediocre sales effort from the GOP and a press corps hoping Republicans fail. But consider the 2019 options: The GOP wants to make the cuts permanent; Democrats want to repeal most of the reform to finance more spending.
• Deregulation. Congress through the Congressional Review Act scuttled 16 rules that the Obama Administration tried to impose in its final days. That included everything from regulations about online privacy that somehow didn’t apply to Facebook or Google to environmental overreaches like the stream protection rule. Before 2017 Congress had invoked the CRA only once—for a Clinton ergonomics rule.
Rep. Jeb Hensarling also succeeded in reforming the 2010 Dodd-Frank law’s assault on community banks. The Senate filibuster prevented him from doing more, but the lame duck session could push through other useful reforms, including work requirements in the farm bill. The free-market Mr. Hensarling is retiring and his successor in a Democratic House would be Rep. Maxine Waters. That is the election policy stakes in profile.
The GOP has established itself as the only party that reduces burdens on businesses so they can focus on innovation and sales. This is a welcome departure from a Republican Party that for too long abided more regulations, if at a slower pace than Democrats.
• Judiciary. The Senate has confirmed 84 judges, including 29 to the appellate courts and two Supreme Court justices. Judges can sit for decades and shape the next generation of legal minds in clerkships. Much of the credit goes to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who didn’t hesitate to finish what Harry Reid started and bust the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. Here the Senate stakes come into sharp relief, as Democrats would refuse to confirm any Federalist Society nominee.
• Health care. The biggest disappointment is the failure to replace ObamaCare after campaigning on the issue for eight years. The GOP is now getting blamed for the dysfunction in health-care markets though not one Republican voted for ObamaCare. Lost too was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to impose fiscal discipline on Medicaid, which is on an unsustainable path.
The GOP did at least eliminate the financial penalty for declining to buy insurance as part of tax reform. That offered some immediate relief to middle-class voters who don’t receive subsidies for buying an expensive product they may or may not want.
The prevailing attitude among Republicans now is that they should forget about health care. The risk is that a Democratic Congress would work with President Trump to impose price controls on prescription drugs, which is pavement on the road to single payer.
• Defense. Congress ended years of sequestration cuts that had damaged the military more than any enemy in the field, as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has put it. The Navy testified last year that it had 41 fewer ships and 90,000 fewer sailors than it did on 9/11. More defense rehabilitation is needed, but a Democratic House will try to block it.
• Spending & entitlements. The Senate Democratic price for even a modest two-year defense increase was increases on domestic accounts, and the GOP has a less than illustrious record on spending, especially the two-thirds of the federal budget that runs on autopilot (entitlements). The Senate returned to its regular process of passing appropriations bills, and the budget process featured less drama than in years past. But the outcome—more spending—was unchanged.
The President has no appetite for addressing the insolvency of Social Security and Medicare, and this lets Congress off the hook. The intellectual case for Medicare premium-support or other reforms will take a hit with the retirement of Speaker Paul Ryan, but perhaps some of his younger colleagues will take up the cause.
• Immigration. After health care, the biggest missed opportunity was a deal trading legal status for immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children (Dreamers) for money for border security (“the wall”). This was a failure of the hard left and right, but the failure hurts Republicans more as the party in power. They lost a chance to say they solved an immigration problem that the Obama Democrats wouldn’t.
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Not everyone in the GOP seems to appreciate that even if Republicans hold the Senate, the window for conservative reform will close if Democrats win the House. As of a count on Sept. 28, some 734 bills have passed the House and are awaiting action in the Senate.
Democrats want voters to believe that Donald Trump is the main election issue, and Mr. Trump agrees. But the real stakes are whether the next House majority will pull Mr. Trump to the GOP right on policy, or to the Nancy Pelosi left. Mr. Trump can go either way without intellectual or political confliction.
Yet Speaker Ryan will leave Congress having accomplished much of his 2016 “Better Way” agenda that so many on the left and right mocked as outmoded or impossible to pass. This record of accomplishment, and the reality that the economy is working for more Americans, is what may tempt voters to give the GOP another chance.
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