Steven Pearlstein is a Senior Fellow at Penn Washington. He is also the Robinson Professor of Public Affairs at George Mason University and a former Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the views of Penn Washington or the University of Pennsylvania. The plot…
The always perspicacious Jonah Goldberg has a new column at The Dispatch, which he edits, that could easily serve as the mission statement for Fixing Congress. “The abdication of Congress’ role as the arena where political fights happen has turned the House and Senate into a stew of de facto pundits and lobbyists of…
There is a lot of talk these days about what “Democrats” on Capitol Hill should do to resist the Trump blitzkrieg or whether “Republicans” will be able to resolve their disagreements over spending cuts and Ukraine. Implicit in such questions is a widely shared assumption that the way things ought to work, the natural order,…
“We can spend an entire year getting nothing done.” Sen. John Kennedy, R-LA, in Politico on the possibility that the House and Senate will not agree on President Trump’s “one beautiful” tax and spending bill.
What has the new Republican-controlled Congress accomplished legislatively in its first three months? Just this: fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year under a continuing resolution narrowly passed with only Republican votes that lets the president set spending levels rather than Congress. All the rest has been partisan posturing full of sound…
To hear it from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrats were faced with two terrible choices: force a lengthy government shutdown that would have hurt millions of ordinary Americans and given President Trump and Elon Musk an opportunity to disembowel more government programs, or acquiesce to a six-month Republican funding bill that would have hurt…
President Trump is often misinformed and misguided. He lies and exaggerates about a lot of things, but he’s not completely wrong about everything. He’s not wrong that the immigration system is broken and illegal immigration had got out of hand, straining local budgets, overwhelming local culture in some places, and undermining the rule of law.…
Many Americans have been shocked recently as Republican senators set serious concerns and supinely vote to confirm patently unqualified and inappropriate nominees for the most powerful positions in government. For secretary of defense, a philanderer with a reported (and unrefuted) drinking problem and a well-documented disrespect for females in combat. A political henchman who promises…
The problem with the Democrats’ response to President Trump’s hostile takeover of Washington is not that Democratic politicians aren’t unified or outraged enough, as if those would accomplish anything. No, the problem with the response is the same as their problem with the last election campaign: a stubborn refusal to talk honestly about the problems…
Cut through all the partisan finger-pointing, set aside all the rationalizations and excuses, and what you’ll find at the root of Congress’s dysfunction is a serious lack of seriousness and self-respect among rank-and-file Members. We saw no better example than Sen. Joni Ernst’s succumbing to MAGA bullying this week by announcing her intention to vote…