Julian E. Zelizer: Don't Judge the 111th Congress Yet
[Julian E. Zelizer is a history professor at Princeton University. He is the editor of an essay collection, “The Presidency of George W. Bush: A First Historical Assessment,” due out this fall, and the author of “Jimmy Carter.”]
With all the political challenges Democrats face going into the midterms, one thing is clear: Despite talk of a broken branch of government, Congress has been enormously productive since President Barack Obama took office. The list of legislation that has passed the 111th Congress is impressive: an economic stimulus bill, health care reform and financial regulation, among others. Some commentators have compared this Congress with the 73rd and 74th (the early New Deal) and the 88th and 89th (the Great Society).
It is too early to tell whether this Congress will have the same kind of impact as those earlier ones. We don’t yet know what will happen to the measures that have passed when they are implemented, whether they will have the same kind of long-term success in achieving their objectives as measures such as the Wagner Act (1935) and the Civil Rights Act (1964). Nor do we know whether the bills will last over time. It is important to remember that there are many landmark bills, such as the loophole-closing Tax Reform of 1986, that unravel after passage.
But we can discern three important differences between the current Congress and those of the past that can help us understand the challenges facing everyone who operates in the current fraught political environment.
The first difference is that the 111th Congress passed major controversial bills that impose many costs but don’t provide a clear set of universal benefits....
Read entire article at Politico
With all the political challenges Democrats face going into the midterms, one thing is clear: Despite talk of a broken branch of government, Congress has been enormously productive since President Barack Obama took office. The list of legislation that has passed the 111th Congress is impressive: an economic stimulus bill, health care reform and financial regulation, among others. Some commentators have compared this Congress with the 73rd and 74th (the early New Deal) and the 88th and 89th (the Great Society).
It is too early to tell whether this Congress will have the same kind of impact as those earlier ones. We don’t yet know what will happen to the measures that have passed when they are implemented, whether they will have the same kind of long-term success in achieving their objectives as measures such as the Wagner Act (1935) and the Civil Rights Act (1964). Nor do we know whether the bills will last over time. It is important to remember that there are many landmark bills, such as the loophole-closing Tax Reform of 1986, that unravel after passage.
But we can discern three important differences between the current Congress and those of the past that can help us understand the challenges facing everyone who operates in the current fraught political environment.
The first difference is that the 111th Congress passed major controversial bills that impose many costs but don’t provide a clear set of universal benefits....