It’s one of those truisms that comes back again and again: Achieving the big stuff in life is seldom easy. Big decisions and big solutions can be very complicated. Accomplishing real progress gets even harder when a large number of people are going to be affected. And the more decision-makers that are involved, the trickier the process becomes. Winning elections is difficult. But governing effectively is in a whole other league.
In our federal government, 536 people get an official vote in the process of passing legislation. And while the legislative branch has ceded a great deal of power to the presidency over the last century, it is still the 535 members of Congress that are largely responsible for constructing bills to address the country’s great problems.
With all of the drama we’ve been witnessing in the nascent Trump presidency, it’s easy to lose sight of congressional relevance. The Trump show is running live every day and night, and has even drawn the attention of Americans who not so long ago didn’t give politics a second thought. The president just loves to boast that he’s “keeping all of his promises.” Like every other political question debated these days, people will dig into their positions on whether the president’s claims are true or not. But either way, so far, none of the things that he’s proposing to do confront the truly big problems that our country is facing.
In the first outline of his proposed federal budget, Mr. Trump is announcing that he will increase Defense Department spending by $54 billion. The 10% hike is massive by historical standards, and the White House plans to pay for much of this increase by cutting funds to the State Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and that other popular scapegoat known as “foreign aid.”
The usual ideological debate on these spending decisions started playing out the minute the budget headlines were offered up to the press. But what we don’t hear about - not from the president nor his party’s leaders in Congress - are the larger questions and arguments about this proposed increase. What are the actual domestic programs and services that will be cut? Whom will it affect? Why does the Defense Department need more than $50 billion in new spending? The president says: “We never win a war. We never win. And we don’t fight to win.” Does the president want to launch a ground war? Where? Does he want $54 billion because he wants to fight wars on multiple fronts? Is our military not capable of those combat objectives even if they were engaged right now?
We also see a lack of serious discussion on the immigration issue. The president says he’s following through on his campaign promises here, too. Is he? Sort of. His base is already showing signs of anger at his sympathetic remarks about “dreamers.” But even as troubling as the president’s executive orders on immigration have been to a huge proportion of Americans, he and his leaders on Capitol Hill are still not addressing the larger challenges in our immigration system. This is not all his fault, of course. The system has been in disrepair for years; the Simpson-Mazzoli Immigration Reform and Control Act being the last major legislative package Congress actually passed to confront the issue - 30 years ago.
Trump’s Senior Advisor, Steve Bannon, seems to be just fine pursuing his “economic nationalism” goal of reducing the number of immigrants who come to the U.S. There are arguments to be made on behalf of this policy as well as against. But it completely ignores the larger questions that are inherent in the current status of the broken system.
George Borjas is a Cuban American who came to America as a child refugee in 1962. He is also an economics professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. In his article, “The Immigration Debate We Need,” Borjas explains that there are both costs and benefits associated with the immigration issue, and that the comlexity of the problem is ignored at the solution’s expense:
“Inevitably, immigration does not improve everyone’s well-being. There are winners and losers, and we will need to choose among difficult options. The improved lives of the immigrants come at a price. How much of a price are the American people willing to pay, and exactly who will pay it?”
The facts regarding both the social and economic ramifications of our defective immigration system - positive and negative - can be hard to discern and discuss. The president’s “extreme vetting” of people trying to come to the U.S. from seven countries draws a lot of political lightning, for good reason, but it doesn’t solve the real problems.
Health care. On Monday morning, a day before he’ll give a national address to a joint session of Congress, President Trump said the following to Republican governors and health insurance executives in a photo-op at the White House:
“Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated. I have to tell you, it’s an unbelievably complex subject.”
The easy shot to take at the president here is just too easy. And whether he is truly just realizing this, or whether he knew full well last year that his campaign promises of immediate repeal and “terrific” replacement were silly political statements, it’s a diversion from the larger point: there is no serious plan being proposed that will be optimally effective in correcting the existing deficiences in our health care “non-system.” This is the term I used in Unlock Congress to explain how backwards our health care delivery is in this country. It was backwards before the Affordable Care Act, and even with some of the substantial improvements delivered by President Obama’s legislation, it is still rife with holes and inefficiences.
The health care “non-system” we have here operates differently than in many other advanced democracies. It is true that we have a ton of amazing health care professionals as well as groundbreaking medical innovations in America. But we also have huge prices for pharmaceutical drugs and for medical procedures compared to many other nations. We also have a Medicare system that is fiscally unsustainable over the long-term. Obamacare was designed to at least begin bending the cost-curve on health care in a better direction, and growth in health care spending has actually lessened somewhat since its passage. But there are still serious fixes to be made to the law both in terms of affordability and efficiency. This is not something that can be repaired through pithy campaign accusations nor simple legislative solutions. Donald Trump, whom many believe was not a serious man in the first place, may just be learning this reality. But in the U.S. Congress, the Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader have no excuses. They have had years and years to prepare and propose.
Infrastructure. A seemingly far less complex issue, and one that the president made big promises about as a candidate and since his inauguration. Yet no dollars announced in the budget. Perhaps Mr. Trump will surprise us in his national address. Not likely, though.
But again, this is not solely the fault of the president. In 2013, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ “Report Card” gave the nation’s infrastructure a D+. The ASCE has outlined upgrades necessary by 2020 amounting to $3.6 trillion. Everything from roads, bridges, levees and dams, to airports, schools, energy grids and hazardous waste facilities. Even if President Trump is sincere in wanting to work with congressional Democrats to invest in rebuilding our country, the GOP will have to step up to the plate in order to make it a reality.
This new president has not proven to be a person who’s very interested in details or rational explanations, to put it mildly. But he also doesn’t make these decisions alone. The majorities in Congress are responsible for the answers as well. Considering the style and inexperience of President Trump, the members of his party on the Hill may now be even more accountable when it comes to taking on the complexities of constructing policy, working with the minority, and passing legislation that will actually improve Americans’ lives.