"Partisan polarization"

One of most annoying memes of centrist commentariat is the idea that the major political problem in the contemporary U.S. is an exacerbation of "polarization" between the democrats and republicans. Via the economist, here's Ezra Klein:

Take any issue that you’ve actually heard a lot about. The headline clashes. The big-ticket bills. They’ve all got money on both sides. They’ve all got platoons of lobbyists swarming onto Capitol Hill. They’ve all got activists and interest groups and even ordinary Americans pestering their congressmen. And they all go the same way: the Democrats vote with the Democrats, and the Republicans vote with the Republicans.

That’s true even when the big money lines up in favor of another outcome. In 2011, the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO joined together to call for a major reinvestment in American infrastructure. None passed. In 2010, most of the health care industry was either supportive or neutral on the Affordable Care Act, and if any one of them could have swung the votes of even a few Republican senators or congressmen, the desperate Democrats would have let them write almost anything they wanted into the bill. But not one Republican budged. In 2009, the Chamber of Commerce endorsed the stimulus bill as a necessary boost to the economy. Not one House Republican voted for it. Almost every major business group has been calling for tax reform and a big, Simpson-Bowles-like deficit reduction package for years now. But Congress remains deadlocked.

Klein is arguing that the political influence of wealthy interests, through contributions and the entire lobbying apparatus of "access," is greatly exaggerated. But notice the language of his supposed counter-evidence: "joined together to call for", "either supportive or neutral", "endorsed", "has been calling for." These all describe the public stances of various groups, but the hypothesis he is arguing against is precisely that the mechanism through which such groups exerts power is not their public pronouncements but their in-the-trenches lobbying efforts. The question is whether any of these groups actually mobilized their resources behind any of these initiatives: after all, politicians have an incentive to respond to the suggestions of even their most powerful supporters only insofar as there would be potential consequences--even intangible, in terms of "relationships"--if they don't. This doesn't disprove Klein's claims, it merely shows that his supposed evidence has no bearing on the claims he's challenging

What does put pressure more directly on Klein's view is that he's being very selective in the cases he's mentioning. The pattern he describes is indeed nearly universal during Obama's presidency. The scorched-earth policy of the republican party in the past 3 years is a curious phenomenon, and probably does require an explanation, but it is also relatively unique to this most recent period. Thinking back the past 20 years or so, most "big ticket bills" were completely bi-partisan affairs: welfare reform, financial deregulation, the bush tax cuts, "no child left behind", medicare drug coverage, and so on. Other than Obama's health care reform (which, it should be noted, despite being passed only on a narrow partisan basis in the end, was more or less written to be maximally appealing and profitable to the health care industry), these were all far more politically important than the fights Klein mentions.

The final issue in the passage I quoted from Klein is also noteworthy, for a slightly different reason. It is true that there is a big campaign for "deficit reduction." Klein's presentation would make it seem like one side was supporting the prevalent plans, while another was not, but this is not really true. Most politicians in both parties would endorse a "Simpson-Bowles-like deficit reduction package." It is true that any particular proposal ends up splitting on party lines and so no action is taken. Yet, and this is admittedly just speculation, the core of all such plans is so-called "entitlement reform," and it's a fair guess that insofar as there's any actual support from business groups it's focused on that one issue. In short, they want Social Security and Medicare stuffed and mounted on the wall. Tax reform, quite frankly, is almost certainly a side issue: after all, corporations have done quite well for themselves in the current, patchwork system, and even if they admit in principle that it's a ridiculous tangle, it not a high priority for anyone.

And so, what to make of the fact that both parties make noises in favor of "entitlement reform" but seem to gridlock on the issue of taxes? Maybe Klein is right that the "partisan polarization" is the real causal force, but I can't help but wonder: are reductions in medicare and social security benefits really politically viable? It's all well and good to talk about the need for "entitlement reform" in the abstract but to actually propose and fight for a specific reduction is something else entirely, and as basically the only universal social programs in the U.S., quite possibly one of the few issues that are truly electorally radioactive. In such a situation, it's better for everyone involved if competing plans essentially go nowhere legislatively, because it frees politicians from having to choose between explicitly opposing the plan (thus alienating all of the interests lined up in favor of it) or voting for it (making reelection essentially impossible).