Happy July 4: Why doesn’t Congress do anything?

I hope everyone is enjoying July 4th. We celebrate our traitorous rebellion against a legitimate government so that we could govern ourselves and yet it does not seem that our current government is any more responsive to the people than was King George III and his Parliament.

Politicians ask for our votes by saying that the current set of laws and/or implementations of laws is intolerable. Yet once they get elected and the paychecks begin to flow they don’t seem inclined to change anything. The Democrats controlled Congress and the White House during the early Obama years and they passed essentially one law: Obamacare. The Republicans have controlled Congress and the White House (admittedly with a President who has been a Democrat for most of his life) for 1.5 years and they have passed essentially one law: the corporate tax rate cut.

Concrete example of inaction: some states want to required childless able-bodied adults to work if they are going to receive Medicaid benefits. Instead of Congress passing a law to say whether or not this is legal, it is left to appointed judges to decide the question using old laws. See, e.g., “Judge Strikes Down Kentucky’s Medicaid Work Rules” (nytimes). This seems like a classic example of policy-setting that was traditionally done by Congress, not a solo judge or even a chain of appeals courts.

“Congress Is Weak Because Its Members Want It to Be Weak” (Commentary) explores this question:

About half a year from an election that could plausibly end their unified control of Congress for a while, congressional Republicans appear to have decided to spend this time doing essentially nothing. Even if bipartisan agreement is too hard to achieve, they have the opportunity, using the budget-reconciliation process, to take on serious legislative work with bare majorities. And they have a president eager to sign practically anything. But they are choosing to send him little of consequence.

People who run for Congress are still very ambitious and driven. But their ambition is now channeled away from the institution of Congress and redirected along two related paths. … Ambitious people have pride and want prominence. … many members of Congress have come to see themselves as players in a larger political ecosystem the point of which is not legislating or governing but rather engaging in a kind of performative outrage for a partisan audience. … They remain intensely ambitious, but their ambition is for a prominent role in the theater of our national politics. And they view the institution of Congress as a particularly effective platform for themselves—a way to raise their profile, to become celebrities in the world of cable news or talk radio, whether locally or nationally, to build a bigger social-media following, and in essence to become stars.

They can best use this platform not by engaging in the mundane work of legislating but by taking part in dramatic spectacles and by fueling the outrage that is now the engine of our politics.

I’m not sure that this article contains the answer, but at least it addresses the question. Why haven’t we seen more changes to our laws? The above social media theory is interesting, but I personally think it is that any significant change would be so painful for at least one lobbying group that party unity becomes impossible to maintain, e.g., the legislators from farm states will always vote for market-distorting subsidies regardless of party affiliation.

Something to ponder on July 4. Maybe readers have the answer!