KAMIKAZE CONGRESS

Republicans in Congress are once again in a bind over how to fund the Federal Government while not acquiescing to policies and programs they dislike.

Many House Republicans want to sink Obamacare. They point to selective implementation delays, waivers, and the general erosion of public support for the program. However, House Republicans only control one of three components needed to make laws and pass a budget. Democrats hold the Senate and the White House. Any defunding of Obamacare dies in the Senate and on the President’s desk.

Threats to block continuing resolutions to fund the Federal Government revisits the sorry record of Republican led government shut downs. Except for the November 23, 1981 shutdown, ushered in by President Reagan vetoing a continuing resolution, none have ended well for Republicans.

The most infamous was the back to back shutdowns in November 1995 through January 1996. The newly resurgent Republicans wanted to flex their muscle against a President they assumed was a spent force. The GOP fully controlled the Legislative Branch for the first time since 1954. Speaker Gingrich thirsted for a budget show down that would reshape the budget battles. He failed miserably because he and House Republicans did not make their case for such brinksmanship. This flawed messaging took a bizarre turn when Gingrich went completely off topic to complain about having to sit in the rear of Air Force One on the return flight from the funeral of Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin. Republicans now confronted the perception that the budget meltdown was about personal grudges not real policy.

After the 1995-96 shutdowns, Clinton shifted to the center for his domestic agenda, a slight victory for Republicans. However, Clinton regained his pre-1994 election momentum while Republicans faltered. It would take until the summer of 2011 for budget “hawks” to once again dominate Republican fiscal policy. During the fifteen year hiatus, Republicans lost all credibility on spending as they outdid the Democrats on appropriation earmarks, government growth, and executive branch waste. Obama has certainly added to the deficit and the growth of government, but Republicans, both in Congress and the White House, gave him a running start.

Republicans now have a dilemma of their own making. Since the budget battles of mid-2011, they have done a terrible job at making the case for cutting the size of government. Except for Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), Republicans and their media allies have defended Defense Department spending (which is as wasteful as any domestic program), and proposed ideological cuts not management based cuts. The moment you select which sacred cows to slaughter, while protecting others, you slide onto ideological thin ice. The public’s wide spread cynicism of politics is currently hurting Republicans far more than Democrats.

The other dilemma is Republicans assailing Obamacare without proposing a viable alternative. America is the best country in the world if you need shock-trauma treatment or complex diagnostics. It falls to 30th or worse if you need chronic care or are uninsured. Demographics are driving chronic care. Americans are getting older and living longer. Medicare is already sailing over the fiscal cliff. The economy is driving the other crisis. The era of forty hour a week “W2” employment is giving way to part time “1099” jobs where benefits do not exist. A real mature discussion about standards of care, alternative treatments, and family caregiving should have occurred prior to debating the role of government. Unfortunately, the hyperpartisan environment poisoned that potential dialogue in the early 1990s. It has been a snake pit of snark and snipe ever since.

So where does this leave Republicans? Defunding Obamacare and forcing a government shut down is a “kamikaze” mission. It will only end with Republicans self-immolating. A better course of action is the following:

[1] Republicans in the House not do show up to vote on any fiscal legislation. Except for House leaders and a few other Republicans, let the Democrats casts all the votes. You establish a quorum and let the Democrats vote through the continuing resolution. That way the Democrats “own” Obamacare.

[2] If Obamacare is as dysfunctional as many now think, then it will fail on its own. President Obama, the Democrats in Congress, or their key constituencies will blink and seek ways to either fix or scrap Obamacare.

[3] Republicans spend their time and political capital developing a viable alternative to Obamacare. An aging America filled with “1099” part time workers is a reality and must be addressed. Looking for real solutions and building positive consensus around those solutions would re-energize the Republican brand as caring and rational.

[4] Republicans need to revisit Simpson-Bowles http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/ and the various reports developed by Senator Coburn. Putting forward a management based budget that addresses underlying fiscal issues would also help rebrand Republicans as caring, rational, and reasonable.

These four steps will be anathema to the “conservative” pundits and their audience of zealots. They will all rail against anything less than Republican Members crashing into public opinion. On the other hand, the rest of the 230 million voting Americans may take a second look at a rational Republican movement and reward it not only in 2014, but 2016 and beyond.

Congress Heal Thyself

Thank you, Senator Tom Coburn, for once again shining light on how much of our tax dollars are wasted.

Senator Coburn’s has now turned his flood lights on Congress itself. The U.S. Senate remains mired in the 19th Century - providing taxpayer subsidized services to its Members and staff. Millions of dollars are spent underwriting substandard consumer services with no end or accountability in sight.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/30/should-congress-take-haircut-senator-says-barbershop-other-perks-ripe-for/

The same situation existed in the U.S. House of Representatives until the revolution of the 104th Congress (1995-1997). In the first few months of 1995, the newly created Office of the Chief Administrative Officer led the way in privatizing and downsizing everything possible in House operations.

Opening of Privatized House Beauty Parlor - October 17, 1995

There is a good reason to have personal services located within the buildings of Capitol Hill. Nearly 20,000 employees work, sometimes 24-7, to support the Congressional process. Long hours make it very difficult to schedule personal mail runs, haircuts, shoe repair & shines, and meals. Thousands of “captive customers”, along with 3 million tourists a year, should be “manna from heaven” for enterprising vendors. However, until the election of 1994, these vendor operations were composed of highly prized patronage positions. Members from both parties carved-up these petty fiefdoms and brokered positions for votes and kickbacks. Mistresses and dysfunctional nephews were stashed in these ever more bloated and subsidized services.

The network of unaccountable, corrupt, and wasteful services institutionalized a kleptocracy that found increasingly ingenious ways to steal public funds. This culture began to fall apart as the thievery and sexual misconduct became too much for many of its protectors. One scandal after another erupted in the early 1990s, leading to the downfall of the forty-year rule by the Democrats in the House.

Incoming Republican leaders, including Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, Jim Nussle, and Ron Packard, knew that they had limited time to end these abuses before their cynical colleagues created their own version of the kleptocracy. The early months of 1995 witnessed a vicious internal struggle as Republican kleptomaniac wannabes battled with reformers over privatization, downsizing, and accountability. Thankfully for America, the reformers won. House services were forever changed. Bloated operations that wasted millions turned into private operations paying 4+% of their gross sales back to the House. Along with it came a business-based culture focused on service excellence and profit. In the process $184 million was saved in less than 18 months, of which $36 million was reprogrammed to create a 21st Century “CyberCongress”.

Opening of Privatized House Shoe Repair and Shine Services - October 2, 1995

These radical changes were supported by many reform-minded Democrats, like Rep. Steny Hoyer. Hoyer had led a similar effort during his tenure as President of the Maryland State Senate. The impacts of ongoing savings, improved services, and accountability were so overwhelming positive that Speaker Nancy Pelosi not only embraced them, but consulted with the former Republican CAO’s team on how to continue the reform process. When Speaker Boehner took the helm, he enthusiastically continued the business focused operations.

So what happened in the U.S. Senate? Nothing! It took until 2008 for the Senate to finally vote to privatize its food services - ending over $2 million in annual waste. Now Senator Coburn is blowing the whistle on the Senate’s barber shops, beauty parlors, and other wasteful and subsidized service operations.

Media scrutiny is also ratcheting-up http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/supercuts_707691.html.

Unfortunately, these are only voices in the wilderness as Senate Leaders and key managers dither while our tax dollars burn.

Republican Dilemma

By Scot Faulkner & Jonathan Riehl

What happens when a Republican candidate is damaged goods? This is the dilemma facing Republicans in the May 7 special election for South Carolina’s 1stCongressional District. The Republican leaning district should have attracted top tier candidates, but after the primary and run off voters are confronted with the ghost of scandals past – former Governor and Representative Mark Sanford.

This is the last thing Republicans needed. Sanford clearly has moral issues; otherwise he would still be married to his first wife and mother to his four children. He is not ethical, otherwise he would not have lied to everyone about his affair, diverted state funds for personal use, and been censured by a 102-11 vote by the South Carolina House of Representatives. His intelligence is questionable, given everything he did to self-immolate in 2009.

Until his fantasy trip on the Appalachian Trail, which to the surprise of everyone extended all the way to Buenos Aires, Sanford was a respected fiscal conservative. Sanford was even making motions towards a presidential run in 2012. What do you do when someone you may agree with on key issues makes your skin crawl?

How could such damaged goods occur in the wake of Republicans launching their strategic rebranding? Before the GOP collapsed into an incestuous echo chamber, there was a conservative intellectual tradition centered on the ancient concept of “Ethos”. This dates to the dawn of Western Civilization and concerns right and wrong choices. Ethics is about choice. Mark Sanford and the current Republican Party is a sad collection of wrong choices.

Some Republican pundits are going through Olympic style gymnastics to justify their support of Sanford. Conservative Talk Radio and Fox News are proclaiming that Sanford’s zipper problem is very different from President Bill Clinton’s zipper problem. They are asserting that one warrants eternal ostracism while the other merits forgiveness. Ironically, in December 1998, Rep. Sanford supported the resignation of adulterous Speaker-wannabe Rep. Bob Livingston, stating, "The bottom line is that he lied under a different oath - the oath to his wife."

Sanford and Clinton are just two in a long line of politicians who are motivated by something other than their heart and mind. The list is wonderfully bi-partisan. Here is the parade of shame from just the last two years: Chris Lee (R-NY), Eric Massa (D-NY), Mark Souder (R-IN), Anthony Weiner (D-NY), and David Wu (D-OR). Mercenary cable news use adultery as a ratings boon during the scandal and then profit on the residuals. Fox hired Sanford as a paid commentator, while CNN and Current TV hired disgraced Governor Elliott Spitzer as a host. This is the antithesis of ethical public behavior. Rome's pre-eminent political thinker, Cicero, defined this as “A good man speaking well”. Cashing-in on the scandal parade is neither.

Partisan acolytes for both sides have had to respond to these sex scandals by biting their tongues and finding ways to overcome sordid details and photos. It would be refreshing to hear just one of them simply say, “Okay, he’s an immoral a##hole, but we need his vote”.

The changing world of mass social media and “Oprah-style” confessionals has altered our politics for the worse. Thankfully, there is still such a thing as indignation, founded on essentially conservative ethical principles.

We have a test case for ethics in this Special Congressional election, which may be overshadowed by the basics of power politics. Republicans want to hold onto every Congressional seat, and deprive Democrats of anything that builds momentum for the November 2014 showdown. However, losing this special election may help Republicans achieve their long term objective to reinvent and reposition themselves for 2014 and 2016. Unfortunately, a Sanford victory sets-up the embarrassing tableau of Speaker Boehner swearing him in while former mistress, Maria Belen Chapur, holds the bible. Sanford would then go on to upstage Floor debates, committee meetings, fundraisers, and rallies.

Republicans clearly are wrestling with a major dilemma - whether the short term hunger for power trumps long term reasoning. Speaker Boehner endorsed Sanford, while the National Republican Congressional Committee has decided not to spend any more money on Sanford’s behalf ahead of the May 7 special election.

These observations come from the different perspectives of the two authors. We both agree that Sanford’s re-insertion into politics offends us both. It is a dilution of serious, ethical, political debate.

Scot Faulkner was Personnel Director for Reagan-Bush and the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. Jonathan Riehl, J.D., Ph.D., is a communications consultant for political campaigns and national nonprofit organizations and former speechwriter for Luntz Research, and instructor in Communications Studies.