Each time the pendulum swings in U.S. politics, the party that comes to power learns how much harder it is to make sound economic policy than to criticize that of the opposition.
Consider the last century. From William McKinley’s election in 1900 to Franklin Roosevelt’s 32 years later, Republicans had 24 years in the White House. Democrats then held it for 28 out of the next 36 years, with Dwight Eisenhower the only Republican. Since 1968, a Republican has been president for 24 out of 36 years.
Majorities in Congress have not always aligned with the presidency. Republicans controlled both houses from 1900 to 1932. Since 1932, however, Eisenhower and President Bush have been the only Republican presidents to enjoy sympathetic majorities in both the House and Senate.
Democratic presidents fared better. Every Democratic president from FDR on enjoyed Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress at some time, and Kennedy, Johnson and Carter had them for their entire terms.
Many political pundits argue that we are now in a period where Republicans will command a majority of the national electorate for an extended time, just as Democrats dominated elections from 1932 through 1980. This is not to say that Democrats will never gain the White House or control of one or both houses of Congress. But it will be an uphill fight.
If this is true, Republicans will find that power brings responsibility. Moreover, rhetorical positions that serve an opposition party well may not necessarily inspire sound policy when power shifts.
Democrats experienced this during 64 years of Republican domination after the Civil War. During this period, minority Democrats harshly criticized Republican economic policies, calling for lower import tariffs and for higher levels of silver purchases to increase the money supply.
With little chance of their gaining control of the levers of power, their campaign rhetoric was often extreme. But once the Democrats controlled both Congress and the White House, they found such economic policies were not as easy to implement nor as effective as they had long proclaimed.
The shoe is now on the Republican foot. It will pinch. Republicans long were the party of balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility, while Democrats were reckless spendthrifts. That changed with Ronald Reagan. Tax cuts and increases in defense spending trumped balanced budgets. From the beginning of Reagan’s term in office through that of his successor, George H.W. Bush, we quadrupled the national debt.
Republicans will note that the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives all 12 years and the Senate for half of that period. Democrats were as complicit in ballooning the debt as Republicans.
That is no longer true. After falling throughout the late 1990s, deficits are once again rising. The second Bush administration cut taxes while increasing defense and domestic spending. No economist outside of the administration anticipates that even strong economic growth can close the gap.
A century ago, Democrats found that low tariffs and free coinage of silver did not cure all ills. Contemporary Republicans face similar lessons on budget deficits.
Many in the House believe budget gaps can be closed by cutting waste. But when faced with cuts to popular programs, the GOP is as resistant to change as 1980s Democrats were.
Consider Trent Lott. Few Republicans banged the low-tax, waste-cutting drum as loudly as the senator from Mississippi. But when the Republican Bush administration proposed modest limitations on subsidies to wealthy owners of large cotton farms, Lott strongly opposed them, as did many of his colleagues in both houses. When the administration proposed large cuts in funding for Amtrak, Lott was adamant that no cuts be made in service to his state.
The Defense Department recently recommended that a number of military bases be closed. Members of Congress from affected districts have all been loud in denouncing Pentagon folly.
The Republican Party is not monolithic. Thoughtful Senate Republicans, such as Richard Lugar, John McCain, John Warner, Lincoln Chafee and Lindsey Graham, recognize the problems that large deficits pose for the nation. But their colleagues in the House remain in some cloud-cuckoo-land on budget issues.
Here in Minnesota, there is a growing divide in the Republican Party between anti-tax absolutists such as Gov. Tim Pawlenty and more-pragmatic legislators. Did the tax levels we had back in the 1990s cause greater economic harm than the program cuts contemplated now? The party is not united, especially with an election looming next year.
When a party is dominant — whether post-1932 Democrats, contemporary Republicans or Mexico’s Partido Revolucionario Institutional (now out of power), policy debates within that party become more important than arguments between parties. That is what is going on right now in both the United States and Minnesota. How such internal debate plays out at the state level will have near-term consequences. How it plays out on the national level will affect our children more than us.
© 2005 Edward Lotterman
Chanarambie Consulting, Inc.