Ezra Klein: Obama, FDR and the will of two Congresses

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obama-fdr-and-the-will-of-two-congresses/2011/11/07/gIQAhmXryM_print.html

Obama, FDR and the will of two Congresses
By Ezra Klein, Published: November 7

snip//

In “Reaching for a New Deal,” Theda Skocpol and Lawrence Jacobs recall with bemusement the sepia-tinged excitement that greeted Obama’s victory in 2008. What the FDR-obsessed pundits missed, the two political scientists say, was that “the timing, nature, and severity” of the economic crises the two presidents faced were very different.

Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidency in 1932, three years into the Great Depression. The unemployment rate that year was 23.6 percent. Obama won the presidency in 2008, mere months into the financial crisis; unemployment was at 6.8 percent. Consequently, the two presidents faced political systems prepared to do very different things.

snip//

Still, the basic truths of the period remain: By the time Roosevelt took the presidency, the Great Depression had done so much damage that Congress was ready to do something, anything, to end it. At times, FDR harnessed that energy in service of his agenda. At other times, Congress forced him to go further than he had intended.

For better or worse, that is a very different dynamic than the one that has prevailed during Obama’s presidency. It is hard to come up with even one example of Congress forcing Obama to go further than he wished, and easy to come up with many in which they forced the president to trim his sails.

This is not a defense of Obama, nor an attack on FDR. It is simply the reality of the American presidency. Congress can write legislation and pass it over the president’s veto. The president cannot write legislation nor pass it without congressional assent. The president comes after the Congress in the Constitution and is indisputably less powerful. Yet we understand American politics primarily through the office of the president and attribute, say, things that happened between 1933 and 1945 to FDR, or from 1981 to 1988 to Ronald Reagan. But Congress is always there, and so is the economic context that’s driving the agenda. We’d do well to pay more attention to both.

[WI_DEM]

1. The main thing FDR had from 1933-1939 were overwhelmingly Democratic congresses

I mean by margins in both the House and Senate of 2-1 and then 3-1 Democratic. Obama hasn't had any such luxury--even in his first two years--and the repubicans of that era were of a much more diverse breed. There were actually progressive republicans who worked with the president.

[Pirate Smile]

2. I don't know why people keep fighting this fact. The main problem - even in the first 2 years - has

always been Congress.

Even the few months where we had 60 in the Senate - it was a 60 as "liberal" as Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Joe Lieberman and Mary Landrieu. Every single one of them had an absolute Veto over legislation.

This was never anything close to an FDR Congress.

Edit to add - this was a very interesting article - especially all the legislation where the Congress pushed FDR futher to the left then he had wanted to go - like it says, this never happened with Obama.

[yodermon]

3. The way the Presidency is advertised and analyzed is at odds with the Constitution

A candidate campaigns on what they will *get done* in office.
If/when they fail to "get these things done", they are lambasted for "breaking campaign promises."

It's the candidate's fault for declaring that they will accomplish x/y/z without the caveat that Congress has to act before s/he can do jack shit;

it's the media's fault for validating and perpetuating this myth.

Presidents campaign as if they will be dictators, and are evaluated as if they were supposed to have been dictators. "Obama can't get the Congress to pass anything". well duh, that's the way it's supposed to be.

[bvar22]

4. That is as good an excuse as any...

...for Obama NOT standing up for The People against the 1%.


Obama's Army, Jan. 21, 2009




You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
Solidarity99!
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[treestar]

8. The Constitution is an Excuse for what?

Not having a dictatorship of the proletariat?

[uponit7771]

5. FDR had a > 70% dem congress throughout his 4 terms

[zalinda]

6. One of the errors in this piece is

the way unemployment is counted. The unemployment rate at the time Obama took office was much more than 6.8 percent, but no one in DC wants the real number known because then that means they haven't been doing their jobs. Maybe if the real numbers were told, the Congress WOULD be ready to do something.

And Obama made his bed with his appointees. He showed who he was working for, and it wasn't the 99%. Saying that Congress is/was holding him back is just a ploy so he doesn't look so bad, it's called share the blame.

zalinda

[treestar]

7. Rec'd

"We understand American politics primarily through the office of the President." That's because it is so much easier to blame one person.

[Number23]

9. I'm recing this every place I see it.

If it can make the tedious, tired swill that is the endless "Obama vs. FDR" comparisons go away, rec'ing is the least I can do.

[boston bean]

10. you are right, there is absolutely no comparison between the two. nt

[Number23]

11. And anyone remotely interested in facts and history will read this article

(as well as countless others on this topic) and realize how foolish and naive they sound as they continue to bray that "Obama is no FDR" with no thought for or understanding of the country's current political and economic climate.

"But for political scientists and historians of the Great Depression, the agonies and ecstasies of both sides are a continual annoyance — an example of how the past and the present are distorted by America’s fixation on the president and inattention to almost everything else in the political system."

He absolutely nails it.