Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics provides more detail and argument in support of the proposition, advanced in my own initial reflections, that John Boehner was an effective speaker of the House — from a conservative point of view. First, Trende shows that federal spending has been held down more sharply during Boehner’s tenure as speaker than at just about any other time since World War II. That five-year tenure included five years of a Democratic president and four years of a Democratic-majority Senate.
Second, Trende shows that the October 2013 government shutdown, a model admired by many and perhaps all of Boehner’s critics, was electorally disastrous for Republicans.
I suspect many of Boehner’s critics are simply unfamiliar with these numbers, just like the great majority of citizens. The hold-down of federal spending was accomplished by the sequester procedure which has stayed in place now for four years. It’s not the optimal way to form a budget. But if your goal is holding down spending — and reducing spending from 25 percent of GDP to 20 percent — then the sequester has been very effective, and so has Boehner.
In listening to Boehner critics, I have the sense they do not understand or appreciate this at all. Similarly, on the shutdown I hear from them a bland assurance that Republicans won a House majority in November 2014, so the shutdown in October 2013 was not a political liability. Take a look at the chart Trende presents, and see if you don’t conclude, as I do, that that’s political wishful thinking.
Trende is skeptical that a Boehner successor can do better, on these issues or in satisfying Boehner’s critics. As I noted, the same Constitution that gives the House a certain primacy in taxing and spending also gives the president a veto on any bills it and the Senate passes. The best suggestion I have seen for better tactics comes from The Federalist’s Ben Domenech, and is directed not at Boehner but at Mitch McConnell, Senate majority leader since January 2015 and minority leader for the previous eight years. Domenech argues that McConnell should have unleashed a full-fledged high-publicity fight when Democrats filibustered a defense appropriation bill last June.
As I look back, I see Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid’s squelching of a Senate budget and obstruction of the appropriations process as an effort to stall all fiscal issues until the end of the fiscal year, at which point Democrats use the threat of a government shutdown to force Republicans to yield. Boehner has made an attempt to pass appropriations bills in a timely manner in the House, with considerable success, but they have tended to be held up in the Senate — the Reid strategy. Domenech argues that Democrats would have been on the defensive in mid-year blocking a defense bill, and that Republicans should have attacked then.
It’s a strong argument, but not against Boehner, some of whose critics attack him because he hasn’t forced the Senate to abolish the filibuster. I presume that if they had thought about it they would have attacked him for not creating the 27-hour day and eight-day week.
The irony of all this is that the situation which has long frustrated Boehner’s critics is coming to an end. President Obama, with his particular incapacity and disinclination for rational negotiation, won’t be president 16 months from now. Reid, with his particular disregard for legislative responsibilities, won’t be Senate Democratic leader 15 months and a few days from now. Will Boehner’s successor do any better than he would have in those remaining months? Will that person do better than Boehner would have in the new political setting starting in January 2017?
