Stimulating Bipartisanship

Last year, liberals and conservatives in Congress saw no value in meeting in the middle to pass bipartisan legislation on the biggest topics of 2007: Iraq and immigration. But this year, they are scrambling to the center to pass a $150 billion stimulus package to boost the flagging economy.

Why? One reason is that a majority of voters in both parties now agree on the problem. In a mid-January Gallup poll, 82 percent of consumers said that the country's economic conditions are getting worse, up from 53 percent a year earlier -- a staggering shift in public opinion. Although a majority of Democrats have been complaining about the economy throughout the Bush presidency -- a commentary on their feelings toward the White House as much as on the nation's financial picture -- now Republicans are worried about the economy, too.

"People are definitely spooked by what's going on with the economy," said Scott Bittle, executive editor for Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research firm. "And they expect Washington to respond."

The sense of a looming crisis, with some economists putting the odds of a recession at 50-50, also increases the pressure on lawmakers to act quickly. In addition, a clear policy option that appeals to the sensibilities of both sides of the aisle -- tax rebates for the middle class -- provides a safe place for partisans to focus their attention without alienating their base voters.

Democrats "have been complaining for some time about the Bush tax cuts favoring the wealthy, so now they can have tax cuts favoring the other end of the economic spectrum," said James Campbell, a political science professor at the State University of New York (Buffalo). Conversely, Campbell noted, the party of the president is typically held accountable for a weakening economy. "The fates of a lot of Republican congressmen are tied at least in a small part to the fate of the top of the ticket. If the second-quarter economic conditions for the country are very good, Republican candidates would do better."

Indeed, the underlying motivation for bipartisan support of economic stimulus legislation may well be fear, as lawmakers in both parties worry that they'll be held responsible in November if the economy tanks while Washington fiddles. But amid the rush to act, some liberal and conservative activists worry that their representatives in Congress are tossing aside policy principles in the interest of political expediency -- what conservative Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called a "press-release-driven stimulus package." Meanwhile, political scientists question the electoral payoff from the legislation in a year brimming with political uncertainty.

"This is one of these situations of, 'Don't just stand there, do something,' " said Keith Poole, a political scientist at the University of California (San Diego), who described the bipartisan plan for economic stimulus as "getting crop-duster planes and flying over major urban areas and pushing barrels of money out." Poole pointedly added, "They're going to fall all over themselves to push the money out of the planes."

The urgency was clear when leaders of both parties barely blinked an eye before dropping longtime pet proposals that could have been deal-breakers for stimulus legislation: President Bush said he would not push for a permanent extension of the tax cuts that he got through Congress during his first term, and Democrats said they wouldn't demand big spending programs. They also backed off "pay-as-you-go" budget rules popular with the party's moderates. "It takes a lot of the kick out of the stimulus package if for every dollar we spend in one place, we take a dollar out in another place," said Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, who usually supports the deficit-neutral rules.

The abandonment of core principles in the name of bipartisan unity has some activists on both sides grumbling. Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect, a liberal magazine, said that the economy is in such bad shape, the limited proposals that Democratic leaders are working on with Bush will have little effect.

At a Capitol Hill event organized by the Campaign for America's Future, a liberal think tank, Kuttner said that Democrats should come up with a big proposal for the long-term future of the U.S. economy built on government intervention in the marketplace. Bush and congressional Republicans would likely oppose it, making the parties' differences clearer to voters, Kuttner said. He criticized the Democrats' push for economic stimulus that is "timely, targeted, and temporary," the buzz phrases that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other leaders are using. "I fear this is going to be mistaken for teeny and tepid," he said.

Similarly, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, said that Republicans are compromising conservative fiscal beliefs by supporting "income redistribution" in the emerging package. "It's a political gesture that might be helpful to the Democrats because they have a voting constituency that falls for that kind of stuff," Armey said in an interview. "For the Republican voting constituent who is looking for growth in his firm and expansion in his employment opportunities, he's going to see it as, 'This isn't going to help me any.' "

Republicans should insist on tax cuts aimed at business growth and investment, Armey said, and tell the Democrats that that's the only stimulus they will support. "If the Republicans basically acquiesce to the Democrats' political pandering and demonstrate themselves to be nothing more than Democrat-lite, who would vote for them?" he asked.

Lawmakers, however, seem worried not only about the public's perception of the economy, but also about the public's perception that Washington is broken. Both Republicans and Democrats said that over the holiday break, their constituents repeatedly asked them why nothing was getting done on Capitol Hill amid the partisan bickering. The economic stimulus package is thus a sudden opportunity for productivity.

"It's critical that we do it quickly, and that means that we have to have a bipartisan package, and I have been encouraged that for once the leaders actually seem to be talking with one another to accomplish that goal," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who is up for re-election in November. "It is totally out of character so, frankly, I was surprised at it, but maybe the leaders are getting the message from being home that people are sick of this. They really are. They want us to work together and get things done."

In addition, Congress's liberal and conservative camps already seem resigned to the fact that the stimulus package is basically set, so they're holding their fire to blast each other in economic fights later this year. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., for example, offered a slate of proposals for tightening government regulation of the financial markets and boosting infrastructure spending that he wants Congress to take up after the stimulus package.

"A $145-billion-to-$150-billion stimulus package in an economy of $13 trillion to $14 trillion is almost like a pebble in Lake Michigan," Dodd said. "We need to be talking about much more in the short term, in the midterm, and the long term if we're going to achieve the kind of confidence and optimism that people need."

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said that the parties' views of how to improve the economy are different. "This really is a philosophical clash as well as a clash of what is most effective," she said. "Where the president wants to focus on those privileged few at the top who have done very well in the economy, we want to focus on low- and middle-income families."

Similarly, conservatives have proposed a bevy of tax cuts aimed at businesses and investors that they say would promote long-term job growth. "You're seeing the Republican Party through these members throwing ideas out about continuing economic development and growth," said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, at one of several tax-cut proposal press conferences on January 23. Sessions noted that Democrats have talked about letting Bush's tax cuts expire in 2010. "Jump-starting an economy really would not have been necessary if the Democrats hadn't talked about massive tax increases of $3.5 trillion. They're the ones that have tanked the economic outlook for the future."

A lingering question is whether voters will reward lawmakers for this initial short-term stimulus. Some members aren't so sure. "Most of my constituents say we need to be thinking about the long term," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. "They're looking at what's going to be happening six months out, a year out."

Although political scientists widely agree on the economy's important role in presidential elections, its role in congressional elections is less clear. "The president is more affected by the economy than the Congress is," Campbell said. In the boom year of 1998, Democrats gained seats in the Republican-held Congress, but their success seemed to be related more to the GOP-led impeachment drive against President Clinton than to the economy. The 2000 election, preceding an economic downturn by about a month, produced Democratic congressional gains but a Republican White House, while the 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections turned more on national security concerns than on the stable and growing economy.

Very few congressional seats are actually competitive in any given election, Campbell noted. But lawmakers are always more worried about re-election than they need to be, he said, so even if an economic stimulus package won't directly help their campaigns, they figure it won't hurt. "Increasing the chances of losing from 1 percent to 2 percent is something they don't want to do," Campbell said.

In addition, the very fact that the momentum for economic stimulus legislation built so rapidly this month -- with Democratic leaders and Bush pronouncing their support even before Congress reconvened -- prompted most lawmakers to back something that seemed a preordained accomplishment. "The fiscal stimulus horse has left the barn," Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on January 22. "And I'd prefer that horse to be a thoroughbred."