Julian Zelizer: Why Congress must be Obama's equal partner
[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is the co-editor of "Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s" and is completing a book on the history of national-security politics since World War II, to be published by Basic Books.]
Tens of millions of people are expecting great things from President-elect Barack Obama.
With his announcement of a plan for a bold public works program to revitalize the nation, there is anticipation once again among Americans about what a president can accomplish.
Many Americans -- center, left and right -- are hoping the White House can deliver the nation out of its economic crisis.
Even Democrats, who have spent the past eight years railing against excessive executive power, seem comfortable, even downright eager, for presidential action.
There is a real danger that in the desperation for assistance and the enthusiasm about Obama, Americans will overlook the limits of a president-centered government. This is no time to continue with an imperial presidency. Indeed, just the opposite.
Congress must be made a full partner in Obama's economic recovery program, or else he will not enjoy the same kind of success or legitimacy as President Franklin D. Roosevelt did with the New Deal, particularly in FDR's first term.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Congress can act as an enormously productive institution, initiating ideas that presidents are reluctant to embrace and shaping public debate over the nation's biggest problems.
What Congress offers is the ability to design domestic programs that have strong bipartisan support, such as Social Security or Medicare, because they come out of the messy legislative process that can produce durable compromise among a broad spectrum of the country's representatives.
The New Deal should be a model for Democrats, yet not because of FDR. The New Deal Congress was not a passive institution.
It showed that members of Congress, who are often in safe seats, are sometimes willing to take bigger chances than a president who feels constrained by having to run in a competitive race for re-election.
Many of the New Deal programs we remember most did not come from the White House. For instance, FDR opposed proposals for expansive public relief programs on the grounds they cost too much money and were wasteful.
Sen. Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, who had been fighting against Herbert Hoover's opposition to unemployment assistance since 1931, teamed up with Colorado's Edward Costigan to persuade the president to sign onto the Federal Emergency Relief Act.
When FDR sent Congress a bill in March 1933, it was legislation that La Follette and his colleagues had been working on for a good while, legislation they had convinced FDR was essential to the nation....
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Tens of millions of people are expecting great things from President-elect Barack Obama.
With his announcement of a plan for a bold public works program to revitalize the nation, there is anticipation once again among Americans about what a president can accomplish.
Many Americans -- center, left and right -- are hoping the White House can deliver the nation out of its economic crisis.
Even Democrats, who have spent the past eight years railing against excessive executive power, seem comfortable, even downright eager, for presidential action.
There is a real danger that in the desperation for assistance and the enthusiasm about Obama, Americans will overlook the limits of a president-centered government. This is no time to continue with an imperial presidency. Indeed, just the opposite.
Congress must be made a full partner in Obama's economic recovery program, or else he will not enjoy the same kind of success or legitimacy as President Franklin D. Roosevelt did with the New Deal, particularly in FDR's first term.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Congress can act as an enormously productive institution, initiating ideas that presidents are reluctant to embrace and shaping public debate over the nation's biggest problems.
What Congress offers is the ability to design domestic programs that have strong bipartisan support, such as Social Security or Medicare, because they come out of the messy legislative process that can produce durable compromise among a broad spectrum of the country's representatives.
The New Deal should be a model for Democrats, yet not because of FDR. The New Deal Congress was not a passive institution.
It showed that members of Congress, who are often in safe seats, are sometimes willing to take bigger chances than a president who feels constrained by having to run in a competitive race for re-election.
Many of the New Deal programs we remember most did not come from the White House. For instance, FDR opposed proposals for expansive public relief programs on the grounds they cost too much money and were wasteful.
Sen. Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, who had been fighting against Herbert Hoover's opposition to unemployment assistance since 1931, teamed up with Colorado's Edward Costigan to persuade the president to sign onto the Federal Emergency Relief Act.
When FDR sent Congress a bill in March 1933, it was legislation that La Follette and his colleagues had been working on for a good while, legislation they had convinced FDR was essential to the nation....