If you want a nice illustration of political parties playing to their strengths, look no further than the congressional schedule for the forthcoming week.

Senate Democrats are pushing Republicans back on their heels this week with a debate on reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act.

S. 47 would continue programs first created by the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. The law increased spending targeted at investigating and prosecuting violent crimes against women, it imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on people convicted of such crimes, and it provided for civil suits when prosecutors decided not to prosecute. VAWA also established the Office on Violence Against Women within the Department of Justice.

As the New York Times reports:

The measure foundered last year on Republican concern over obscure issues like the bill’s inclusion of additional visas for abused illegal immigrants, its treatment of same-sex couples and its strengthening of American Indian courts.

And that debate continues.

Whatever the merits of their arguments, Republicans look bad to average Americans—particularly women—if they are holding up a law aimed at protecting women. Score one for the Democrats.

Over in the House, the Republicans control the schedule, and guess what they’re doing: pushing Democrats’ buttons.

The issue is federal workers’ pay. H.R. 273 plays to Republican constituencies by eliminating a pending pay increase for Federal employees. The pay freeze was put in place by President Obama in 2010, but the freeze is coming to an end.

Freezing federal pay is a good chance for the Republicans to tweak Democrats, and particularly the president, for their insufficient attention to debt and deficits. A vote on the bill in the House will require Democrats to choose between federal employees, which are a Democratic constituency, and a public that isn’t all that fond of what they perceive as remote, well-paid bureaucrats.

When good politics and good policy line up, the Congress can move forward. Most weeks are like this one, though, with the two parties just playing to their strengths.

It was a very important vote, and at the same time political business as usual.

Last week, the Republican-controlled House voted 245 to 139 to pass H.R. 6429, the STEM Jobs Act of 2012. It looked like a move to increase immigration to the United States among highly skilled immigrants trained in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (S, T, E, and M—get it? “STEM”). But it was actually a shot across the bow in a much bigger battle.

The Republicans hoped to do something that was good for business and the economy, while also showing that they are not the anti-immigrant party that they are often painted to be. If President Obama and the Democratic Senate oppose the bill it would make them seem equally anti-business and anti-immigrant.

Mid-week last week, the Obama Administration indeed released a statement [PDF] opposing the bill.

The Administration is deeply committed to building a 21st-century immigration system that meets the Nation’s economic and security needs through common-sense, comprehensive immigration reform. As a part of immigration reform, the Administration strongly supports legislation to attract and retain foreign students who graduate with advanced STEM degrees, to establish a start-up visa for foreign-born entrepreneurs to start businesses and create jobs, and to reform the employment-based immigration system to better meet the needs of the U.S. economy. However, the Administration does not support narrowly tailored proposals that do not meet the President’s long-term objectives with respect to comprehensive immigration reform.

Opposing the bill doesn’t come from being anti-business or anti-immigrant, but because President Obama wants comprehensive immigration reform, far more than the Republican caucus would be willing to pass.

So President Obama’s opposition to the bill is meant to put Republicans on the spot. This sliver of immigration reform that Republicans can agree to is only a tiny part of what the country needs to line up the law of the land with the economic and social needs of the country in the immigration area. Republicans are the ones hostile to immigrants and our immigrant traditions, say President Obama and the Democrats.

If you thought there was a change coming to immigration law because of passage of this bill in the House, then you probably think a barking dog is always about to bite. No, this was a message-sending exercise, and the intended recipient was you.

Do you think the only immigration reform we need is a small increase in high-skill immigrants? Or do you think that even greater high-skill immigration should be part of a broader package? These are strategic questions raised by the passage of H.R. 6429 last week. They tee up the debate that may or may not come to the main stage of public next year, under a new Congress and in the second term of the Obama Administration.

Register your opinions in the comments below or on the bill page for H.R. 6429. In the meantime, you can see the current vote on H.R. 6429, the STEM Jobs Act of 2012 just below. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article on the bill.

The bill to repeal Obamacare that House Republicans will run to the floor this coming week has not been introduced yet. Consistent with their promise of advance notice, though, they have made a copy available.

This one is blessedly brief at six-and-a-quarter pages. Five of those pages are introductory material and “findings,” the statements Congress sometimes attaches to bills to show why they’re doing what they do. One page is dedicated to getting rid of the main Obamacare law and the follow-up law that Congress passed to complete the president’s health care revamp.

But you don’t need to read it (unless you’re obsessed). Just like the last time the House passed an Obamacare repeal, this is for show.

A bill to repeal Obamacare has to be passed by the Senate, and the president must sign it. In the Senate, a bill must pass by a majority of its 100 members, and Republicans don’t have a majority. They have 47. To top it off, most bills require a 60-vote majority because of a thing called the “cloture” rule, which requires 60 votes to end debate and prevent a filibuster. Were the bill to get out of the Senate, there is, of course, the president, who is not going to sign a bill to repeal his signature legislative achievement.

A veto override takes 2/3rds majorities in both the House and Senate. That means 290 votes in the House and 67 votes in the Senate. Obamacare passed 219 – 212 in the House and 60 – 39 in the Senate. Not gonna happen.

As before, House Republicans are signaling with all their might that they represent the only hope of getting rid of Obamacare after the next election. In a post called “Obamacare and Reconciliation,” we recently went through how that would work next year, if Republicans’ stars align.

Sophisticated followers of politics and policy like us don’t need to pay much attention to the debate in the House this week. It’s Republicans’ hope of pushing through the media filter that electing people from their party next year will get rid of the health care law. Democrats are equally interested in showing the public that they are going to protect the law.

This is Congress working to take an issue to the people in November. Make sure you’re there to have your say in the next election.

There’s something going on in Washington, D.C.—something unusual, but something we might be able to explain.

Congress is being boring.

That’s right. The last few weeks, both the House and Senate have taken up relatively mundane bills. Nothing has generated much interest or heat. The knives are sheathed. Things are quiet. We’re in a lull.

Sure, the House is going to take up a bill this coming week to lop out a piece of President Obama’s signature health care legislation. But both Republicans and Democrats have criticized Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board because it could make Medicare cuts without congressional approval.

If there’s a big debate on H.R. 5, the Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2011, it’s not going to change any voters’ minds about how to vote this year.

And that’s the reason we’re in a lull. There’s a big election this fall.

Election years are different from other years. In the out years, there’s always a chance that legislation will pass that gets something done. The two parties don’t have to look for issues to fight about as a display for voters.

But in an election year, everything is a display for voters. Politicians preen like peacocks and butt heads like rams, all a great show for you, America.

It doesn’t do any good, in election years, to compromise and be productive.

But you don’t want to make a big display of “fighting for what’s right” too early in the year. If you do, it will be forgotten by the time November rolls around. March is no time for politicians to be burning their energy and their access to the media.

So everyone’s hanging back, waiting until we’re a little further into the year. That’s when the fighting and prancing will start.

Another reason for the lull is the genuine lack of clarity in the presidential race. Republicans have not definitively settled on Mitt Romney as their candidate. It still could be Rick Santorum or a third candidate who sees enough weakness in President Obama and the current Republican field and decides to make a surprise entrance.

Without a definitive Republican candidate, the issues in the presidential battle are unclear. Therefore, Republican leaders in the House and Democratic leaders in the Senate don’t know which kinds of shells to start lobbing at the other party.

Maybe it’s going to be a race about moral values (Santorum)—watch the Rs and Ds spring to energizing their bases on that one! Or maybe it’s going to be a race about … whatever it is that Mitt Romney stands for. Then we’ll hear a lot about jobs, competence, which steady hand we want on the tiller, and whatever else matters in a Romney v. Obama race.

Until the politicians know which Republican will run against President Obama, they won’t know which kind of fights they should be having to impress us, the voters. So everyone’s sitting back, biding their time.

That’s a couple of reasons why the last few weeks around here haven’t been all that interesting. We are in a … LULL!

What did you expect when you gave control of huge piles of money to a small number of people, and you made it your practice to stop in and check on them just once every two years?

A pair of news items in the Washington Post last week illustrate what might be called “the corruption in government.” That’s not corruption in government—an infection of illegal behavior making its way into an otherwise clean system. The corruption in government is the idea that having political leaders take control of wealth is naturally going to cause abuse. Abuse that’s 100% legal, even.

For the first story, the Post did an investigation turning up where members of Congress have directed aid to their home districts in ways that have benefited themselves personally. The story features Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), who directed funds to downtown Tuscaloosa, Alabama, directly adjacent to property he owns.

In addition, the Post looked into whether politicians’ relatives were benefiting from the aid they were sending home. Sure enough, members of Congress are sending federal dollars to organizations where their spouses and children work. Norm Dicks (D-WA) ranks atop this story, having delivered a $1.8 million earmark to the Washington state environmental agency where his son worked as executive director.

We’ve done so much work on earmarks here. It’s a shame to see them still having their corrosive effects.

What to do about all this?

Get mad? Waste of time and energy.

Campaign to get the baddies out of office? You could, but that’s a lot of work without much reward.

Around here, we think the way to fix this problem is to increase transparency. Make this kind of thing easier to figure out for more people and it will be harder for members of Congress to do themselves and their kin favors like this.

A report out of the Cato Institute last September (written by yours truly) discussed the things that Congress and the rest of the federal government to make information about their doings more available. It’s called “Publication Practices for Transparent Government.” Cato has also graded how well Congress publishes information (summary: poorly) and how well the government publishes information about budgeting, appropriating and spending (summary: also poorly).

Reading up on this will help you understand what transparency can do in this area, and we think it can do a lot.

Here on WashingtonWatch.com, we have a petition supporting transparency called “We Want an Orderly and Transparent Congress. Logged-in users can comment on the petition page, where we will begin organizing people when the time is right. The more people signed on to that petition, the better! Tell your friends! Once we reach critical mass, we’ll go to work on pressing Congress to change itself so that the corruption in government is at least minimized.

Around the time of President Obama’s state of the union speech two weeks ago, Republicans and their allies came out arguing that the Democratic Senate hadn’t produced a budget in 1,000 days. Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) disputes the charge.

Is it true? The new budget season starts today, so it’s a great time to examine that question.

Budget season really does start today. The Congressional Budget Act has a timetable in it (at section 300) that says the president submits his budget on or before the first Monday in February. Today it is!

But don’t hold your breath waiting to get a glimpse of the president’s budget. The White House has kicked back its release by a week—an unfortunate symbol of how both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue flout budget processes in ways large and small.

Now to the question: When was the last Senate budget?

Let’s start with a preliminary question: What is a “budget”?

The Congressional Budget Act defines it with reference to the document it appears in, known as a “concurrent budget resolution.” That definition is gobbledegook:

On or before April 15 of each year, the Congress shall complete action on a concurrent resolution of the budget for the fiscal year beginning on October 1 of such year. The concurrent resolution shall set forth appropriate levels for the fiscal year beginning on October 1 of such year and for at least each of the 4 ensuing fiscal years for the following—
(1) totals of new budget authority and outlays;
(2) total Federal revenues and the amount, if any, by which the aggregate level of Federal revenues should be increased or decreased by bills and resolutions to be reported by the appropriate committees;
(3) the surplus or deficit in the budget;
(4) new budget authority and outlays for each major functional category, based on allocations of the total levels set forth pursuant to paragraph (1);
(5) the public debt;
(6) for purposes of Senate enforcement under this title, outlays of the old-age, survivors, and disability insurance program established under title II of the Social Security Act for the fiscal year of the resolution
and for each of the 4 succeeding fiscal years; and
(7) for purposes of Senate enforcement under this title, revenues of the old-age, survivors, and disability insurance program established under title II of the Social Security Act (and the related provisions of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986) for the fiscal year of the resolution and for each of the 4 succeeding fiscal years.

Take a look at the last budget the Senate passed, though, and you can see these things—not that it’s a clear, readable description of what the future holds for government activity.

Now, Senator Conrad objects to the charge that he hasn’t produced a budget, saying that the Budget Control Act, which passed just last August, is a budget. It’s “more extensive,” setting the budget for the current year and the next one; it’s not just a resolution, but a law; and it has caps on discretionary spending going forward ten years.

Looking at the text of the bill, a government-budget novice like myself can’t see this. It doesn’t look like other congressional budgets, and it doesn’t fit with the definition in the Congressional Budget Act.

But why do we have to accept the government’s definition of what a budget is? It’s our government, and we get to decide when we’re seeing a budget.

I went to a handy resource, called a “dictionary,” to look up the word “budget.” The first two definitions are helpful:

1. an estimate, often itemized, of expected income and expense for a given period in the future.
2. a plan of operations based on such an estimate.

Now we have something we can use! And it can help us sort out what’s going on in federal ‘budgeting.’

The president’s budget (I like the historical tables) lays out not only gross spending numbers but the agencies and bureaus where the money will be spent. It’s a budget, under the more extensive, second definition.

What the House and Senate do, when they do their “budgeting,” is put out gross numbers and then some detail based on functional categories like amounts to be spent on “national defense” and “community and regional development” and stuff. That … almost meets the first definition, but it certainly isn’t itemized. Congress doesn’t actually do budgets.

My conclusion—as a human being and not a budget wonk—is that the Senate has not produced a budget in more than 1,000 days. I also conclude that the Congress doesn’t really produce budgets ever.

Congress is owned by the complexity of the federal government, and it is incapable of budgeting in a meaningful way. If the political charge sticks—that the Senate has failed to budget—so be it. But the problem goes deeper. Congress basically doesn’t budget. It just spends money in the appropriations process—which it flouts just as often as so-called “budgeting.”

A somewhat comical post on a forum called “Above Top Secret” points out that Ron Paul has passed only one bill in Congress. The implication is that he isn’t an adept legislator, so he wouldn’t be a good president. He’s one of several vying for the Republican nomination for president of the United States in this year’s election, and today the Iowa caucuses kick off the process of choosing the Republican nominee.

(Happy 2012, by the way. There’s an election this year…)

The reason why that’s a comical post is that Ron Paul is known as “Dr. No” in Congress. He’s against everything. That’s part of his appeal to his supporters. They want a lot less of everything, which is not an illegitimate approach given the budget deficit, for example.

Paul’s legislative triumph was Public Law 111-76, which provided for the transfer of federal property to the Galveston Historical Foundation. Big whoop.

Only the most simplistic analysis counts the number of bills a legislator or a Congress passes and uses that to determine whether the legislator or the Congress is any good. The ideal number of bills might be zero, for goodness sake.

It’s not just obscure chat forums using that measure, though. Here’s NPR using bill counts as a proxy for congressional success, for example.

Congress has passed few bills this year, but you can’t say Congress is good or bad for that. You can say it’s bad for failing to budget and pass the annual spending bills on time, for passing short-term bills that deny the public the ability to plan, and for many other reasons. We do a lot of carping here about that stuff.

But let’s go with that proxy for legislative goodness, because Ron Paul isn’t the only federal legislator vying in Iowa for the Republican nomination. There’s also Michelle Bachman. And she has passed … zero laws during her service in Congress.

She has a few non-binding resolutions that she has gotten through. In the last Congress, Bachman passed H. Res. 373, expressing the House’s support for designation of the month of September as “National Hydrocephalus Awareness Month.”

In the 110th Congress, she passed two other non-binding resolutions: H. Res. 789, honoring public child welfare agencies, nonprofit organizations and private entities providing services for foster children, and H. Res. 923, recognizing the State of Minnesota’s 150th anniversary.

(Sorry, no links. We didn’t cover these non-binding, largely ceremonial bills back then. We do now, not because they’re important but because you should get to see how your members of Congress spend their time.)

Rick Santorum has actually passed some bills! Does that make him the “best” candidate? He passed three laws in the 109th Congress:

• Public Law 109-156, the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area Improvement Act
• Public Law 109-242, the Fetus Farming Prohibition Act of 2006; and
• Public Law 109-416, the Combating Autism Act of 2006.

And two in the 108th:

• Public Law 108-105, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003; and
• Public Law 108-273, to designate the United States courthouse and post office building located at 93 Atocha Street in Ponce, Puerto Rico, as the “Luis A. Ferre United States Courthouse and Post Office Building.

In the 107th Congress:

…none.

106th:

• Public Law 106-290, to expand the boundaries of the Gettysburg National Military Park to include Wills House; and
• Public Law 106-535, to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 431 George Street in Millersville, Pennsylvania, as the “Robert S. Walker Post Office.”

105:

…none

And his first Congress of service, the 104th:

…none.

There are other candidates, or course. Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and John Huntsman all served as governors, of Texas, Massachusetts, and Utah, respectively. There’s Gary Johnson, of course, the candidate Republicans won’t let you see. He was governor of New Mexico.

So there you have it: top federal legislator Rick Santorum. He’s our pick for: person who passed more bills than the others.

Congratulations Senator Santorum! On this basis, you should be swept into the presidency!

During his time in the Senate, President Obama only passed the Mercury Export Ban Act of 2008, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006.

A couple of interesting things have happened over the last few weeks that offer an insight into professional politics. It’s all about the spin, baby.

First, consider this: It is pretty much optional for a president to get involved in a weather event like Hurricane Irene. Oh, maybe there’s some political risk to not being out front, but if Hurricane Katrina is any lesson, it’s that getting out front can be a liability. Nobody thinks, “Good job, Bushy” when they recall the president at the time saying, “Good job, Brownie.”

Why do you suppose President Obama made such a point of involving himself and federal resources in battling a weather event that was well handled by states, localities, and people? Because it gave him a chance to be presidential. In a way that he wanted.

Hurricane Irene allowed everyone in the political-watching classes to take a day or two off from the economy and joblessness. President Obama got to reinforce his image as the president-not-presiding-over-a-continuing-bad-economy. And he made the most of it.

The economy is not going away, of course, and President Obama has planned for some time to address the economy in September. An interesting thing happened on the way to the speech, though. He doesn’t seem to have checked with the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives before scheduling his speech in the House chamber for tomorrow, September 7th.

Speaker Boehner said, “Mmmmm, no. Why don’t you come back on Thursday, a night on which there isn’t a Republican presidential debate.” Shorter version: “It’s MY House!”

Political watchers take that as either a notable gaffe on the part of the president and his team, or a notable thumbing-of-the-nose on the part of the House Speaker.

You don’t have to agree with the way we’ve told the story here. Doesn’t matter. All of this goes to the kabuki dance that dominates so much of politics. Who’s up? Who’s down? Who’s getting the best table at the fancy steak house?

When questions like that filter out to the public, it can make the difference. If people generally feel good about a president, he can command a lot more attention, he can move votes in the House and Senate, he can raise more funds. If he doesn’t look all that good, nothing goes as easily.

It’s interesting to watch the politics. We put more emphasis here on the policy. What actually gets into bills and into law matters more. But when that’s not available—and it is really hard, despite us, to follow what goes on—politics is good entertainment.

Unbelievable. With Congress failing to reach a deal that raises the debt ceiling and brings federal spending under control, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance reported this past week that members of Congress receive pay and benefits far in excess of what average working Americans receive.

Along with their $174,000 per year salary, members of Congress also receive generous fringe benefits that brings total compensation to around $285,000 per year. With the average full-time employee in the United States earning $50,875 annually, Members of Congress make 3.4 times more than the average American. Only one country—Japan—pays legislators such high salaries relative to the earnings of the people.

How do salaries get so high?

Well, in the United States, at least, they get so high because the people have failed to oversee the government. Over decades, a large and opaque government has concealed its workings from the people. Maintaining a government that is well-run and responsive to the people has fallen off the priority list. Wealthy, entitled politicians do a singularly bad job of managing the sprawling government they’ve built, and they reward themselves handsomely for the job they do.

There are no quick fixes, and there’s no use in getting mad about it. The people that are going to bring this problem under control are playing the long game. That means learning about government and politics. It means devoting a little time each week to following what is going on. It means organizing with others and contacting representatives regularly with informed opinions.

Here at WashingtonWatch.com, you may notice that we don’t really focus on the day-to-day in budget battles that have been playing out in recent weeks. If you’ve arrived at your interest in public policy just in time to watch a disaster like the debt ceiling debate going on in Washington now, you’ve already lost. There’s nothing you can do about it but scream and cry. And that’s not doing anything about it.

We’ve tried to create some tools to help players of the long game win. We have a free weekly newsletter that highlights what’s going on in Congress every week. We report regularly on the annual spending bills that are moving through Congress right now (see here, here, and here). Communications with your representatives about these bills and what you think of them might change a vote. If your representative isn’t good at responding to your comments and questions, then you know you’re not being served well. You can communicate this to your friends and neighbors, and you can support a different candidate in the next election.

It’s hard to do a good job of even these things, given the lack of good information available. That’s why we started a petition seeking a transparent and orderly Congress. Such a thing will make it easier for the American people to follow along. With a little over 140 signers at this point, that’s not enough interest to start a movement. Nobody except your humble webmaster has commented on the petition. So it awaits the day when 1,000—or 10,000 people—have called for a well-run Congress.

If the subject of this blog post interests you, the petition to prevent Congress getting automatic pay raises has just 35 signers at this point. Maybe the American people don’t care. When 1,000 or more people have signed that one, a campaign to actually do something in this area may actually be worth doing.

For all the anger in the country, we don’t see a lot of the work being done to actually change things. Congress has got your attention. Congress has got you angry. But Congress hasn’t got you committed to playing the long game, the game that will actually change things. And that’s just where they want you to be.

When the Senate version of the bill was introduced, we made a little fun: “It also juliennes carrots,” we said of the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011. (Yuk yuk.)

But the bill (House version: H.R. 2560) takes center stage this coming week as the House will use it for a major statement in the ongoing budget debate.

The debate is occurring because the federal government is close to maxing out its credit card. Federal law limits the amount of debt the government may carry, currently to $14.294 trillion. (That’s about $46,000 per person, or $144,000 per U.S. family.)

If the debt limit statute is going to be changed, the bill to do it has to go through the House of Representatives, which is in Republican hands. Republicans, especially those with Tea Party backing, want to control the debt.

So the Republican House plans only to let an increase in the debt limit go through if some real spending cuts happen at the same time. And they want the cuts to hold, so they’re talking about a balanced budget constitutional amendment.

Here (and in the video) are how the Republican Study Committee argues for its proposal to get the federal government’s indebtedness under control:

One-time spending cuts will not be enough to avert the coming crisis. Neither will toothless promises of cuts 10 years from now. Only permanent changes will do. The answer is spending cuts now, enforceable spending caps, and Congressional passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution – Cut, Cap, and Balance.

Is that the right approach?

Generally, Democrats and President Obama feel that the national debt is not as serious a concern as Republicans do. They don’t think that the government’s arrival at its debt limit is an appropriate reason to have this debate. Republicans are holding the government’s good credit hostage to try to get their way.

If the government does reach the limit and starts to default on its debt—refusing to pay out on government notes—the government’s borrowing costs will rise dramatically. This will affect interest rates overall, and it will have unknown, but certainly bad, effects on the economy. The last thing the economy needs is another shot to the gut. The Cut, Cap and Balance approach will go nowhere, so it’s just political posturing.

This is a good, strong debate. We wrote before about your role in it. So? Take part!