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The state of our unbalanced union

by James Norton, opinion contributor - 01/30/18 9:15 AM ET

New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick likes to tell his players that if they each do their own jobs, the team will be successful. As Washington prepares for the State of the Union address, it’s time to take a long hard look at where we are after the first year of the Trump presidency — and whether the players in Washington are doing their jobs to ensure the success of the country.

Congress has abdicated its principal constitutional responsibility by repeatedly failing to pass a budget, and seems to be in a state of permanent crisis. The president and his White House team lack any clear strategy to address global security challenges and lurch from one Twitter-fuelled emergency to the next. At times, it seems all that’s missing is an occasional “Big Brother”-style confession-booth video from the loser in the latest public policy spat.

Let’s face it, our union is in a state of unbalance.

{mosads}It’s been a dozen years since the last time Congress fulfilled arguably its most important constitutional function and passed the annual spending bills required to fund the government in regular order. The government has been running on a series of stopgap funding measures since the current fiscal year started Oct. 1 — meaning no new programs can be started; no new policies made meaningful because resources are put behind them. The latest of these continuing resolutions will keep the lights on for just another couple of weeks, until Feb. 8.

Now we are learning of a deal on immigration that is akin to the Missouri compromise, essentially trading money — $25 billion in border wall spending — for people — the 1.8 million Dreamers who will have a path to citizenship. Somewhere our founders are rolling over.

Congress and the administration should be ashamed of themselves.

How did we get here?

The answer is simple: Our institutions, are failing. Lawmakers, policymakers, thought leaders, business executives and lobbyists, are failing.

But above all, Congress has failed.

Lawmakers have merrily continued to cut taxes while increasing spending, widening the federal deficit and adding more every year to the crushing national debt that we pass on to our children.

Even the president’s recent profanity-laced meltdown over immigration can arguably be placed at Congress’ door.

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Lawmakers have failed repeatedly over nearly two decades to provide a fix for the so-called “dreamers” — those brought to the U.S. illegally as children — perhaps the most sympathetic face of the 11 million undocumented migrants estimated to be living in America’s shadows.

And immigration is only the best example of how the legislative branch has become weak through inaction on policy as well as on spending.

Why is this happening?

Congress was never originally intended to be a full-time institution. To the contrary, the founders conceived of its members as citizen legislators, for whom governing was much more than a hobby, but still only an adjunct to their work as farmers, lawyers, or newspaper publishers.

But in our own era, when 24-hour instantaneous news shout-fests have replaced both the public square and smoke-filled backroom, professional politicians and their associates are locked in a permanent campaign. It makes governing difficult and comity with the other party all but impossible.

Striking a pose for the base has become more important than making the deal — and then doing the tough political work of selling the resulting compromise to the voters.

What can we do?

We do need leadership. Specifically, we need leaders prepared to stand up to their own parties. When did it become political treason to criticize one’s party leadership?

In the 108th and 109th Congresses, GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, as chair of the powerful Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee repeatedly stared down the Bush White House. Working hand in hand with her ranking member then-Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, she held aggressive oversight hearings on the findings of the 9-11 Commission and the botched response to Hurricane Katrina.

With the support of Lieberman both of those sets of hearings resulted in significant legislation which passed with bipartisan support.

We need a Lieberman and Collins for the 115th Congress. Will a Dick Durbin-Lindsey Graham alliance fit the bill? We’ll have to wait and see. But we need much more than that.

If Congress and the administration want to regain the trust of the American voter and reset the balance of power in the republic, they should start by passing a budget.

Congress and the administration, as Belichick would say, need to do their jobs.

James Norton, a former deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security under President George W Bush, is currently founder and president of Play-Action Strategies and an adjunct lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on twitter @jamesnorton99.