Posted by
Buster Foghorn on Monday, January 03, 2011 10:25:41 AM
The 111th Congress scored just a 13% favorable rating; if the 112th is to regain the public’s trust, confidence, and respect, they will need to clean-up past errors and discipline themselves.
A House Republican majority waits in the on-deck circle ready to take their turn at bat in the leadership role in January 2011. They intend to lead off with cuts in spending. Eric Cantor, the new Majority Leader, even has a web site—“You Cut”—that allows readers to vote on proposed spending cuts and then the House votes on the number one choice. But the new majority needs to make other changes besides spending cuts if they are to solve America’s economic problems: rising debt, slowing GDP growth, and declining competitiveness in the world. One suggestion for Republican leaders—identify past Congressional mistakes and root out legislative unintended consequences; by unintended consequences I mean legislation that harms our economy or creates a moral hazard, rewarding unacceptable conduct. Such unintended consequences lead to lower productivity and a lower standard of living.
During the 111th Congress, Democrats passed some legislation even though, remarkably, no witnesses were called, no hearings were held, no amendments were allowed, no one read the bill. Could such a Congress do everything right, legislating without any unintended consequences, when it passed the most laws since the 1960’s? Has Congress really improved that much since LBJ’s Great Society legislation subsidized unwed pregnancy and destroyed black families? Did Democrats in the 111th Congress learn anything about solving problems correctly after seeing the effects in 1991 of the wrong-headed luxury boat tax, a tax threatening 600,000 jobs and driving the boat industry aground?
Two recent reports further illustrate some of the harmful effects from Congressional action when Congress fails to thoroughly study a problem, fails to competently think through an effective solution, or fails to properly exercise the necessary self-discipline over itself, acting instinctively and yielding to the urge to just do something.
First, John Stossel covered the bases (John Stossel - Top 10 Politicians' Promises Gone Wrong) with ten disasters arising from the unintended consequences of Congressional legislation, including these three: Obamacare forces insurance companies to restrict coverage or go out of business; corn ethanol subsidies lead to lower air quality and less corn for food, injuring those least able to feed themselves; and Title IX designed to promote sports for women in college actually adversely impacts male athletes, forcing schools—based on a strict bureaucratic formula—to eliminate nationally ranked teams, even those participating in Olympic sports, in order to reduce the number of athletic scholarships for men so they won’t exceed the number of scholarships for women.
Second, government regulation is driving vaccine manufacturers out of business. “The drug makers are in a bind” say Josh Bloom and Gilbert Ross in New Vaccines, Stat! “— and public health is in danger.” “If the resistance problem jumps ahead of the discovery process, we may again find ourselves with no reliable weapon against infection.” The unintended consequences of this regulation are troublesome—a shrinking number of vaccine manufacturers, less research and development, and fewer treatment options. And all of these consequences are coming together just “[a]s drug-resistant bacteria are on the rampage worldwide,” resulting “in a most precarious situation”.
There could be any number of bills and regulations with unintended consequences that need to be fixed, bills that have stifled business, reduced jobs, or rewarded wrongful conduct. If Republicans decide to act, what should they do? House Republicans—if they want to show a seriousness of purpose—could attack these existing legislative problems by creating a government committee charged with singling out and fixing legislative unintended consequences. Also, they could adopt the “YouCut” model allowing voters to vote on the legislative “unintended consequences” that the public wants fixed, such as the alternative minimum tax with the perennial “one-year patches aimed at minimizing the impact of the tax.” Republicans could vote each week in Congress for a top online vote getter, promising to amend or repeal past legislative mistakes. Also, Republicans could insert sunset provisions, limiting the life of a new or revised bill, requiring Congress fix any unintended consequences before renewing or extending legislation. And if Republicans were to embrace such a plan, it could be a confidence boosting change in the way business is done in Washington, D.C., a change that could restore some respect to the Congress.
What about going forward, how should Republicans proceed with new legislation? Republicans need to remember that Congress has frequently responded to problems instinctively, making things worse.“But deciding how to use scarce resources” when responding to an emotionally charged problem says Charles Murray “is not a matter of caring. It is a matter of deciding what works and what doesn’t.”They should never make a situation worse by acting imprudently. And if they should discover that something they did caused unintended consequences, then they should step-up to the plate and move quickly to amend or repeal their failed solution, allowing the market to solve the problem or waiting for more facts before they venture onto the field again.
The great Japanese baseball player, Sadaharu Oh, perhaps the greatest hitter to take a turn at bat, tells how he ended a batting slump when he learned that the key was “having the discipline to wait….For waiting, I understood in this moment, far from being something passive, was the most active state of all. In its secret heart lay the beginning and the end of all action.” If only the 112th Congress—after cutting spending and fixing past legislative mistakes— before writing a new law could learn to ‘actively’ wait, or at least have the discipline to wait. And then, don’t just do something, do something that works.