Jacob S Hacker/Paul Pierson: Off Center

Jacob S Hacker/Paul Pierson, Off Center: The Republican Revolution & the Erosion of American Democracy (2005, Yale University Press)

I actually read this book after I read Hacker's more recent book, The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream, which focuses more on the effects of the Republican ascendency than on the political techniques surveyed here.

(pp. 2-3):

Today's governing Republican majority can justly claim that it has defied these normal laws of political gravity. It has ruled with the slimmest of majorities and yet overseen a major transformation of America's governing priorities. It has been locked in tight competition with its political rivals and yet shown little inclination to tack to the political center. It has strayed dramatically from the moderate middle of public opinion and yet faced little public backlash. Again and again, it has sided with the extremes. And much more often than not, it has come out on top.

This book explains why. It shows that those who run our nation are committed to ideas and laws that are at odds with the moderate center of American opinion. It explains why our nation's political leaders have veered so far right and why the normal mechanisms of democratic accountability have not been able to bring them back. And it explores how the interwoven forces that have created this troubling state of affairs can be overcome. America's great democratic experiment is under assault. Restoring its health requires understanding how those that hold the reins of political power in the United States have succeeded in pushing American government so far off center.

(p. 13):

Students of politics, even professional ones, frequently take for granted the agenda of political debate -- as if everyone agrees what issues should be debated and what alternatives should be considered to address them. This is a profound error. The great political scientist E. E. Schattschneider once observed: "There are billions of potential conflicts in any modern society, but only a few become significant. . . . [T]he definition of the alternatives is the supreme instrument of power. He who determines what politics is about runs the country." One does not have to believe in a cohesive power elite pushing all conflict to the side to recognize that the power to set the terms of debate is a hugely important mechanism of influence. As we shall see, it is a mechanism that the increasingly coordinated GOP establishment has skillfully used to shift American governance to the right.

(p. 45):

Republicans like tax cuts. The party that emphasized fiscal discipline int he face of the Great Depression now touts tax cuts no matter the budgetary consequence. Tax cuts are Republicans' all-purpose policy tonic, a solution perpetually in search of a problem. If the economy is doing poorly, taxes must be cut to promote growth. If the economy is roaring like a late-night party, the government needs to "open the doors and windows and invite everybody in." As the United States prepared to invade Iraq, Tom DeLay felt moved to declare that it was Congress's patriotic "duty" to cut taxes. "Nothing is more important in the face of a war," DeLay insisted, "than cutting taxes."

(pp. 48-49):

And yet, this conventional portrait of American politics completely fails to explain the tax-cut party. The tax cuts did not pass because ordinary voters wanted them. They passed because Republican political elites were eager to please their base -- the partisans, activists, and moneyed interests that are their first line of support. And they passed because GOP leaders were able to manipulate the public face of the tax cuts through their language, their control over the governing agenda, and their crafting of the tax cuts themselves. What the tax cuts reveal is that Republicans now have the motive and the means to get into law major policies that few Americans support -- and to shield themselves from the risk that the millions on the losing end of the bargain will realize they've been had.

(pp. 52-53):

Thanks to disillusioned former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and journalist Ron Suskind, a number of important internal memos from the early Bush administration are now in the public domain. One that is particularly revealing dates from the unveiling of the Bush administration's first round of tax cuts in 2004 (fig. 3). It was written by Michele Davis, a top Treasury official and participant in daily meetings on the administration's communications strategy. Her prescriptions regarding "message" undoubtedly reflect strategies developed at the highest level. The memo begins innocently enough, asking O'Neill to plug tax cuts at a press event unveiling the president's budget. then, however, Davis warns: "The public prefers spending on things like health care and education over cutting taxes." This is a stunning admission. If the Bush administration had cared about responding to public opinion, it presumably would have counseled a much more modest plan. But to Davis, the views of the public on this profound question of governance offer only a motivation to spin. O'Neill is reminded to avoid talking about any possible tradeoffs that tax cuts might entail. "It's crucial that you make clear that there is no tradeoff here," Davis writes. "Roll-out events like this are the clearest examples of when staying on message is absolutely crucial. Any deviation . . . will change the way coverage plays out from tomorrow forward."

(pp. 71-72):

Republicans have developed what we will call, with apologies to left-wing organizer Saul Alinsky, the "new rules for radicals." Alinsky's original rules for radicals were designed to mobilize public opposition to corporate and elite power. The Republicans' new rules are designed to minimize popular concern about policies and actions that frequently cater to these same corporations and elites. If we are to understand how Republicans have successfully pursued policies inconsistent with the popular wishes, we need to understand each of the six strategies they live by.

• Rule 1: Control the Agenda. Political elites know well that they are advantage don certain issues, and they try to stay on the terrain that serves them best. Even when elites don't control which exact issues come up, they may be able to dictate which proposals receive attention -- a formidable political weapon.
• Rule 2: Don't Focus on the Label; Worry about What You Can Put in the Box. Political analysts too often judge victories by looking only at the label slapped onto whatever has passed. But politicians know well that an enormous range of government activities can fall under the heading of any broad label. To see off-center policymaking in all its dark glory requires looking past labels and examining what legislation actually does.
• Rule 3: Run from Daylight. Passing laws is generally a high-profile venture and therefore potentially risky. But there are powerful ways to change policy without changing laws. And these alternative routes typically throw up fewer roadblocks and attract less attention, which makes them especially attractive for moving public policy off center.
• Rule 4: Don't Just Do Something; Stand There. In American politics, power often means the ability to block things you don't like. And sometimes, to block new policies is to change existing policies. When policies have to be updated to achieve their goals or deal with pressing social problems, successful obstruction means government does less.
• Rule 5: Starve the Beast -- Later. Most of what our government does requires money. As a result, conservatives have long argued that the way to downsize government is to "starve the beast" by slashing taxes. But much of what government does is also very popular. So conservatives have learned to delay the starvation diet for later. Chip away at the financial foundations of government today, so that, down the road, it finds itself -- like Wile E. Coyote in the old Road Runner cartoons -- running in thin air, with nowhere to go but down.
• Rule 6: Tilt the Playing Field. The powers of a coordinated, aggressive political majority can be used to change policy. They can also be used to change the rules of the game, so that the room to pursue off-center initiatives will be greater in the future.

(pp. 79-80):

In 2005, for instance, the Coalition for the Modernization and Protection of America's Social Security (known as "Compass") launched a $20-million campaign on behalf of the president's still-undefined privatization proposal. Although Compass is a collection of major business and trade associations, the effort had all the trappings of a grassroots campaign. Similar efforts were launched by the anti-tax Club for Growth and by Progress for America, an ultraconservative activist network -- both of which targeted the Republican base in key GOP districts. All told, at least $100 million was on tap for the lobbying blitz, most of it coordinated by the White House. "With the president's leadership and the White House leadership, they have really put together a campaign-style effort to enact Social Security reform," said a leader in the Compass coalition. "They've got all their assets involved in this thing."

Even with outside support, however, Bush's overhaul of Social Security will require fiscal chicanery and manipulative policy design at least rivaling that of the tax cuts. There is simply no way to divert so much of younger workers' payroll taxes out of the traditional Social Security system otherwise. In light of strategies chosen in the tax-cut debate, we can expect highly creative attempts to borrow the trillions needed to fund private accounts and even more creative measures to obscure the benefit cuts that privatization will require. The new accounts will be offered up front as manna from heaven that, once granted, can never be taken away. The benefit cuts will be delayed, hidden in the obscure language of cost-of-living increases, or ultimately left to future Congresses to deal with. But the basic strategy will be clear. Get private accounts into law in any way possible. Assure their recipients that these accounts are theirs, never to be altered or touched. Hide the huge costs and risks. And hope that, when the day of reckoning comes, voters won't recognize how and when America's most popular program was hijacked.

(pp. 114-115):

Political inequality of this sort is a cause for concern whichever party it favors. But make no mistake: A system biased in favor of well-off voters is also a system biased in favor of the Republican Party. New York Times columnist David Brooks and others have had much fun casting the battle between Republicans and Democrats as a clash of civilizations between decadent, highbrow coastal regions and the patriotic, lowbrow heartland. Yet traditional economic divisions have not been supplanted by a culture war between tolerant, latte-sipping progressives and patriotic, NASCAR-loving traditionalists. To the contrary: Class is actually an increasingly important dividing line between the parties. Sine the 1950s, the relation between income and party allegiance -- with poor and working-class voters favoring the Democrats -- has become stronger, not weaker.

(p. 115):

Consider trade unions, which once represented more than one in three workers in the United States (and, indirectly, those workers' families). Since the 1970s, the proportion of workers that is unionized has plummeted, and today less than a tenth of private-sector workers belong to a union. Amid the ongoing debate over whether unions are good for the economy, we often forget that they have always been crucial political actors, helping workers identify common issues, informing them about political and policy considerations, and shaping political debates. No organization representing working families today has anything remotely like the same reach, influence, or cohesion as American unions did during their halcyon years.

(p. 116):

Rising economic inequality, in short, has abetted political inequality, hardened the class divisions between the parties, and bolstered the GOP in particular. For well-off Americans, the political world is increasingly their oyster: They vote in high numbers, contribute with abandon, and happily watch as politicians compete for their favor. For less well-off Americans, the political world looks ever more forbidding. Largely neglected by the parties, reliant on the media and candidates for basic information, they have to work ever harder just to have their voices heard. And as the political influence of business and the well off has grown, the political influence of the Republican Party has grown, too.

(p. 141):

Indeed, while expensive lobbying has long been prevalent in Washington, it has recently exploded. The cost of direct lobbying -- personal contact with lawmakers -- has nearly doubled since 1997, to almost $2 billion per year. Indirect lobbying (such as telemarketing and issue advertising) raises the total to roughly triple that amount. Lobbying is a big and rapidly growing business. And it grows, presumably, because people with money think it's worth investing in. They wouldn't be writing bigger and bigger checks unless they expected that the added investment would more than pay for itself.

(p. 142):

As House Republicans worked on these deregulatory initiatives, reporters commented on the remarkable prominence of business lobbyists. Interest group representatives took up positions in committee staff offices, where they drafted legislative text on office computers, conducted briefings for congressional staff, and generally acted as expert consultants on the details of legislation. The picture was one of powerful interests, with huge financial stakes in proposed policies, dictating to elected officials. Yet DeLay's own comments at the time offer a revealing glimpse at a more complicated relationship. "You've got to understand, we are ideologues," DeLay told the reporter Elizabeth Drew. "We have an agenda. We have a philosophy. I want to repeal the Clean Air Act. No one came to me and said, 'Please repeal the Clean Air Act.' We say to the lobbyists, 'Help us.' We know what we want to do and we find the people to help us do that."

Indeed, there is much to suggest that the New Power Brokers have worked diligently to turn the stereotyped relationship between the lobbyists and the lobbied on its head. The most publicized example has been the "K Street Project," begun shortly after the sweeping victory of congressional Republicans in 1994. Unsurprisingly, DeLay and Norquist were at the center of this initiative, too. The K Street Project was designed to pressure lobbyists to adopt a more pronounced Republican slant in both their campaign contributions and their hiring practices. Using figures compiled by Norquist, DeLay called lobbyists into his office to discuss whether their contribution and hiring practices qualified them as "friendly" to the GOP. "If you want to play in our revolution," he announced, "you have to live by our rules."

(p. 159):

As [John] DiIulio noted in his confessional memo, "In eight months, I heard many, many staff discussions, but not three meaningful, substantive policy discussions. There were no actual policy white papers on domestic issues. There were, truth be told, only a couple of people in the West Wing who worried at all about policy substance and analysis. . . . Every modern presidency moves on the fly, but, on social policy and related issues, the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking." But perhaps DiIulio's most revealing revelation was who was in charge of policy design in the Bush White House -- not the Office of Management and Budget, not the White House policy staff, and certainly not the executive departments. Rather, all policy ran through one man, Karl Rove. "Little happens on any issue without Karl's okay, and, often, he supplies such policy substance as the administration puts out," wrote DiIluio. The reason? "The Republican base constituencies, including beltway libertarian policy elites and religious right leaders, trust him to keep Bush '43' from behavior like Bush '41' and moving too far to the center or inching at all center-left."

(pp. 176-177):

This economic and technological upheaval has dictated a sharp turn from "hard news" toward entertainment. Every story has to grab the viewer immediately, because a single dull moment risks the dreaded click of a remote control. As a result, stories have become shorter, and the emphasis has shifted to those that can best exploit the visual power of television: scandal, crime, celebrities, natural disasters, and "soft" news items like personal health and personal finance. What has been squeezed out is hard news, especially concerning relatively complex issues of policy or politics that require many words to explain and typically yield poor visuals. During the presidential campaign of 1968, candidates could expect to speak on camera for an average of forty seconds without interruption; two decades later, the average is just nine seconds. Not surprisingly, detailed discussions of policy that would allow voters to get a better sense of the stakes in ongoing political conflict fare especially poorly in this environment.

(pp. 177-178):

Certainly most newspapers provide very limited information related to the content of policy -- information that we have demonstrated is crucial for accountability. Consider how USA Today, the nation's largest circulation daily, covered the Bush tax cuts in 2001. We and a team of researchers examined every story written in the newspaper on the 2001 tax cuts. Recall again that this was the president's top domestic priority and the most important piece of domestic legislation in two decades. The stakes for Americans were huge. Appropriately, USA Today ran 78 stories about the tax cuts, many of them on the front page. But of those 78 stories, only 6 were primarily about the content of the legislation. Only one was about the remarkable distributional effects of the proposed changes in policy. Instead, the focus of reporting was the political saga: the president's efforts to rally support, the tactics of opponents, and the slow but steady march of the Republicans' agenda through Congress. The bastion of detailed reportage, the New York Times, performed noticeably better, but the same bias was evident. The Times ran 126 stories, almost a third on the front page. But almost 60 percent were principally on the politics of the plan, whereas only 7 stories focused on distributional issues. And, of course, most Americans are not getting their news from the New York Times.

(p. 197):

Whether sympathetic or hostile to organized labor's decline, Americans are conditioned to think of it as natural, even inevitable. As globalization spreads and the American workforce shifts from blue-collar manufacturing into new service industries, according to this common view, unions are gradually rendered obsolete. This conventional wisdom is simply false. All affluent democracies are undergoing these large social transitions. Most are actually more exposed to the forces of globalization than is the United States. But in many of these countries, rates of unionization have declined little if at all. And none has experienced the precipitous decline in unions experienced in the United States.

The scale of union decline in the United States cannot be explained by anything distinctive about the composition of the American workforce or patterns of American economic activity -- the United States is not, for instance, more "postindustrial" or "globalized" than other countries. Instead, the dramatic fall of unions most clearly reflects two distinctively American realities. The first is the acute difficulties that American unions have confronted in adapting to a new economic environment given their high levels of fragmentation and their very uneven geographic reach. These features have made it easier for employers to pit one group of workers against another and to move their activities -- or threaten to move their activities -- to areas where unions are weak or absent, whether inside or outside the United States.

The second reality is more overtly political,a nd it gets to the heart of the problem. The capacity of unions to organize depends on the rules governing collective bargaining, and these rules have grown steadily less favorable to their cause. Unions organize far more workers in other countries not just because workers there are more sympathetic to unions but also because the law makes it much easier for unions to organize. Over the past twenty or so years, in a wide range of settings, American employers have worked steadily and effectively to tilt the rules of collective bargaining in their favor, and they have received a very sympathetic ear from the Right.

posted 2008-06-23