After a decade of bitter partisanship between a Republican White House and a Democratic Congress, America is beginning to pay a hefty economic and social price for its peculiar brand of splintered government.
The emergence of seemingly intractable domestic problems and a raging recession accompanied by job restructuring have exposed the weaknesses of a federal government divided along partisan and organizational lines, many analysts say.
The divisions now run deeper than a mere political split between the executive and legislative branches. Each has been torn internally by the forces of modern politics and lost their old efficiency in dealing with problems.
When frightened Americans were looking to Washington for help in 1991, neither the White House nor Congress was able to develop a speedy, coherent program to relieve their distress. As they saw more wrangling and inaction, they developed a sense that government was helpless.
”Inadequate government leadership undermined consumer confidence and proved to be a major impediment to the resumption of economic growth,” said Stephen Roach, economist at Morgan Stanley Inc., a New York investment-banking firm.
The subsequent lengthening of the recession not only cost the nation billions of dollars in lost jobs, incomes and profits; it also exacerbated unaddressed social problems like homelessness and health care. Trade tensions erupted, and a country`s morale sagged.
Now as domestic and foreign challenges grow with the end of the Cold War, concern is rising that a federal government caught up in its own complex political conflicts may not be up to the task of helping the nation sail through a difficult transition.
Many times throughout its history, America has had a White House and a Congress controlled by two different parties. Over the years, both branches have developed a loose, though tense working relationship that yielded action in times of crisis.
But now the separation of powers has become a chasm. The White House-Congress working relationship is more tenuous. In Congress party discipline and loyalty to the national party have collapsed because television gives candidates direct access to voters, and political action committees provide the financing. Wheeling and dealing that once produced consensus has yielded to disunity and made passage of legislation much more difficult.
Some believe the system is so flawed that there is an inherent bias toward increasing the federal deficit.
The combination of government divided along partisan lines and a splintered legislative process has made government leaders more timid in dealing with the problems at hand.
While President Bush has been accused of lacking vision in his leadership, some analysts pointed to the near-futility of proposing far-reaching programs that could win the hearts of conservatives in his Republican Party and emerge unscathed from Congress.
Stuart Eizenstat, former top domestic adviser to President Jimmy Carter and now a Washington lawyer, said Bush is whipsawed between conservative elements of his own party and Democrats in Congress.
The institution of the presidency, a key power center for bringing together the disparate elements of government, has been weakened in the process, because it looks divided against itself.
Americans have seen some bizarre examples in recent months of just how a divided system affects their lives.
Bush has proposed and signed legislation dealing with civil rights, clean air and highway construction, but only after compromising with Congress. Then, he either proposed regulations to undercut them or didn`t propose enough money to fund them fully, chiefly to mollify his party`s right wing.
Indeed, much of Republican challenger Patrick Buchanan`s campaign has been built around Bush`s lack of vision and his decisions to compromise with Congress on legislation such as civil rights that Buchanan and many conservatives find reprehensible.
The latest piece of legislation to go through this grinder is the anti-recession tax bill that, upon reflection, is proving not to be an anti-recession bill at all. Bush`s package was neither very bold nor would it provide much economic stimulation, since it met the budget targets established in a divisive 1990 budget deal.
But now the bill has become embroiled in a fight over tax fairness, with Democrats in the House and Senate pushing a bill that would tax the rich to provide a middle-class tax cut. Bush may be put in the unenviable position of vetoing it, since it would contain a cut in the capital gains tax he has been seeking.
Ironically, the Democratic front-runner in the presidential contest, Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, is opposed to a middle-class tax cut, although the man running in second place, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, favors it. It underscores that Democrats in Congress are not closely connected to the national party when it comes to tax legislation affecting all Americans.
Robert Reischauer, director of the Congressional Budget Office, fears the tax measure could wind up at one of two extremes before the fight is over:
paralysis or a politically motivated bill that will harm more than it will help.
One key reason is that the White House and Congress distrust each other. Bush`s advisers warned him in 1991 that proposing an anti-recession tax measure would only invite a destructive bidding war with Congress and raise the deficit. As jobs disappeared, Congress, divided among itself, could not get its act together on a single approach for economic expansion.
A chief complaint is that Congress has lost discipline in an age of television and political action committees. Rudolph Penner, Reischauer`s predecessor in the congressional budget post, said members don`t rely on the party to get elected and have an independent source of financing through political action committees.
As a result, they have become almost too democratized, he said, developing into individual entrepreneurs. In order to get legislation approved, leaders have to appease a number of power centers. Former Minnesota congressman Bill Frenzel describes the process in a word: sclerosis.
Many experts said it`s no surprise that a Republican president, especially one more comfortable dealing with foreign policy, would want to shy away from cooperating with such a body. In fact, Bush looks strongest when he is vetoing legislation, blocking measures with which he disagrees.
Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, favors a major review of government institutions, both legislative and executive, to determine whether they should be overhauled to respond to different times.
”We`re in a different world now, with a set of institutions that were basically set up and last looked at in the aftermath of World War II,” he said.
International economic policy is divvied up among several committees in Congress and several agencies in the executive branch, he noted, even though it now is at the top of the nation`s foreign policy concerns.
Although Ornstein concedes that the system is ”out of whack,” as he puts it, he said slashing staff members may not be the answer.
Through all of this, the White House and Congress have managed to avoid outright paralysis on some issues. But the ultimate product, in the opinion of many, is often unresponsive to the problem at hand, weakened by compromise.
Many who have observed this process believe that a bizarre new strain of American government is at work. A nonideological White House and congressional Democrats with no deep connection either to the national party or its candidates for president are developing a tacit, though fragile, understanding about how to survive in an era of splintered power.
Barry Bosworth, an economist at the Brookings Institution, said the upcoming tax bill could provide an example of this tense alliance. ”It will be designed to help incumbents,” he said.
Many Democrats will vote for a tax measure to make them look good back home (and incidentally help Bush), rather than push for the far-reaching proposals advanced by Democratic candidates for president, he said.
Some doubt the need for anti-recession legislation that might only enlarge the deficit.
”There`s a body of opinion in Congress that says that maybe nothing should happen,” said Rep. Bob Matsui (D-Calif.), who would prefer to wait and see if a recovery takes hold before acting, but knows this is probably an impossible sentiment.
