It’s About Executive Branch Competence, Stupid
Newsletter 32: We never actually wanted reality to underscore the life and death stakes of Executive Branch appointments so starkly.
It’s been only a week since our last newsletter but things have, predictably, gotten immeasurably worse. The Trump administration’s response is no less incompetent or contemptuous and lawmakers continue to let many of its most egregious failures continue unchecked.
With each passing day, it becomes clearer that the consensus of the last few decades - outsource everything to private interests and reduce government capacity to almost nothing - has left us all weaker than we could have even imagined. Our system is too fragile to respond to the realities of our world. This crisis must inspire a reimagining.
Congressional Oversight
By all indications, coronavirus is spreading rapidly, nearly unchecked. Yet, the Trump Administration has continued to lie frequently about the number of cases, the severity of the threat, and the administration’s response. Why? in order to make Trump look better--it’s as simple, sad, and devastating as that. Meanwhile, our testing capacity, while improved, continues to be woefully insufficient. And some of the people in charge are apparently crowdsourcing their information from Facebook. The Revolving Door Project has been closely tracking these failures and the people behind them in blog posts and op-eds.
With this administration doing everything in its power to make things worse, House Democrats have focused on legislating solutions to the crisis. Their coronavirus funding package includes important measures that will provide some, although still insufficient, relief to working people by making coronavirus testing free, increasing food assistance, increasing unemployment benefits, and extending paid sick leave to some new workers. This is a start, but the opposition party cannot stop there. Already, many groups are calling for another funding package that does more to insulate regular people from the coming, painful shock. Our Jeff Hauser joined our colleagues at CEPR to offer ideas that get to the need to use government power decisively to mitigate this catastrophe.
But House Democrats must also conduct more active oversight of this administration, to make sure that it is better fulfilling its responsibilities to the public. After all, what use is free testing if the administration can’t even get tests to the people that need them, as remains the case today. And even if the technical response improves, unchecked misinformation could stall progress in fighting the disease.
Lawmakers should look to Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) for inspiration. In an oversight committee hearing last week, Porter used her time to highlight the administration’s authority to make coronavirus testing free and secured a commitment from the Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that he would use it.
Independent Agencies
Even as the fatal flaws of Trump’s downsizing approach become painfully clear, this administration is not backing down. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is reportedly offering separation incentives to 20 percent of its workforce, closing some field offices and consolidating others. Officials claimed that these moves would make the agency more “agile,” but it seems clear that they are really aimed at making it less resilient, less effective, and more malleable to political demands. Just as experts knew we were overdue for a pandemic but could not hope to specify when it would occur, we know a weakened FDIC will hasten and worsen a future banking crisis, even as we cannot with precision tell you if it will occur this year. (although… not that unlikely, if you take a second to think about it!)
Meanwhile, as 21 nominations to independent agency boards await Senate action, McConnell could not be bothered to give them a vote or to lean on his members to send them out of committee. That despite the fact that he is literally running out of court vacancies to fill, his favorite use of Senate floor time when a Republican is president. Instead of spending his energy on the independent agency nominations that Trump has already sent to him, McConnell is encouraging senior judges to retire so that he can confirm more judges.
2020 (and Potentially 2021)
Coronavirus was rightly the main attraction at this weekend’s Democratic debate. Moderators pressed the two remaining candidates, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, to talk about how they would respond to the unfolding public health crisis and manage the economic fallout.
In addition to offering their own plans, each hit Trump for his bungled response. Neither, however, zoomed out to criticize those with whom Trump has surrounded himself, the corporate lackeys and inept cronies who are leading the way. Nor did they discuss how Trump’s fealty to private profit and weak government throughout his administration has made us all more vulnerable to crisis. In so doing, they missed an opportunity to hone in on the potential of executive power, particularly personnel, and draw a clear distinction between themselves and Trump on an issue of the utmost importance.
Even amidst Trump’s failed COVID-19 response, it’s weirdly rare to hear anyone note the direct line between who a president appoints to run the government and how well or poorly the government operates.
In moments of crisis, a president’s ability to act swiftly gives them tremendous power to mitigate worst case scenarios. Their ability to rise to that occasion depends not only on their own decency, grit, or smarts, but on the competence of the team that surrounds them. Sadly, neither candidate took the chance to tell us what their teams would look like.
The lack of explicit commitments in this regard is genuinely concerning in Biden’s case. It is becoming increasingly clear that this will not just be a public health disaster but an economic one. The Obama-Biden administration’s response to the last financial crisis left much to be desired, thanks in no small part to the team of advisers and officials on whom they leaned. Many of those troublesome figures can be found among the ranks of Biden’s bundlers, donors, and campaign advisers, suggesting that a repeat of 2009 is possible. It is incumbent upon Biden to assure voters that this time will be different by vowing not to appoint revolving door figures to his administration.
Although neither candidate focused on personnel, each did make commitments that rest on executive power alone. For example, Biden and Sanders both said that as president, they would deploy the US military to aid the coronavirus response.
Still, they could have gone further. Both candidates should have been clearer about how they would use executive authorities like “march-in” rights to keep pharmaceutical treatments - coronavirus-related and otherwise - affordable. They could also have vowed to eliminate all federal student loan debt, which would be within their power as president and would provide a direct stimulus to millions of struggling people throughout the country.
Want more?Check out some of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to in the last couple of weeks:
Pelosi has Trump Over a Barrel
Trump’s Failing Coronavirus Response is Standard Issue Republicanism in 2020
The Biden Do Not Reappoint List
Congressional Democrats Exhibit Symptoms Of A Spinelessness Pandemic
The Coronavirus Crisis: A Who's-Who of Trumpian Mismanagement
Concrete Solutions to Mitigate the Health and Economic Impacts of the Pandemic
An inexplicable failure – with special guest Jeff Hauser - Eclectablog
Coronavirus boosts push for Supreme Court to broadcast arguments
Maxine Waters Highlights Wells Fargo's Trump Administration Accomplices