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Political Hay
The Reality of Myth
A hundred days is all a president gets — if he’s lucky.
The mystique of a President’s first 100 days may not be a myth after all. The current and former Administrations have both followed a similar trend: the new president’s window for pursuing domestic policy is small and closes rapidly. Both presidents saw rapid approval of their first domestic initiative, only to find the slope suddenly steep.
While setting FDR’s first 100 days as a presidential benchmark has always been patently unrealistic, there is also a core of reality: even at swearing in, the legislative clock is already running.
George W. Bush passed his tax cut within his first months in office, but further major domestic legislative success came only after 9/11. President Obama was able to easily pass his stimulus bill shortly after entering office, but now finds the Hill much higher for his domestic priorities.
Both presidents were comparatively fortunate. Many — Bush I, Carter, and Ford, for example — did not have even this initial success. Little wonder that the exceptions — Reagan, and especially Roosevelt — stand starkly out.
In comparison to recent experience, FDR’s first 100 days is all the more dramatic. Sworn in on March 4, 1933 he stated: “I’m prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken Nation in the midst of a stricken world may require…I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.”
Speedy does not begin to describe it. Two days later, he closed the nation’s banks with a “bank holiday.” A special session of Congress met on March 9, and he had his first “fireside chat” with the nation on March 12. During its special session, Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act, National Industrial Recovery Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Home Owners Loan Corporation, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, and the Civilian Conservation Corps.
In the wake of this unprecedented peacetime action, he stated: “I am certain that this Special Session of Congress will go down in the history of our country as one which, more than any other, boldly seized the opportunity to right great wrongs…to carry through its business with great celerity…”
Admittedly, FDR faced an unprecedented economic crisis and worked with enormous political resources. Unemployment would shortly reach a quarter of the workforce and the economy had shrunk for four consecutive years (today’s unemployment is 9.7% and the economy has shrunk for four consecutive quarters). In Congress, Democrats held 313 House seats and 59 of 96 Senate seats. However FDR needed all of this in order to overcome the inherent obstacles to precipitous action.
The Constitution purposely makes quick action difficult. It also gives the President and Congress very different roles and interests. The President has a national constituency, Congress, 535 local ones. The President has at most two terms, Congress is re-made by election every two years. The President’s eight years in office are slightly more than a Senator’s single term and just four terms for a House member — neither gives these members of Congress time to accrue the seniority needed to achieve power. While celerity is key for the President, longevity is for Congress.
But current technology has made this already difficult dynamic even more disadvantageous for a President. It has changed the policy process by changing the electorate and the media. Information outlets are now instantaneous and virtually unlimited. This information pressure has made the mainstream media that much more voracious if it is to remain competitive.
Footage of President Obama was likely seen by a higher proportion of the electorate during his first day in office than was seen of FDR in his first term. It is unimaginable now to recall that virtually none of the electorate ever saw FDR in the wheelchair to which he was confined throughout his presidency.
This level of exposure rapidly diminishes the president’s level of novelty. At the same time, his proposals are disseminated and dissected to an incomparable degree within the electorate. There is no longer an ability to work in isolation, an ingredient invaluable in forging the delicate compromises needed for legislative success.
Our constitutional system designed the legislative process to be difficult and slow and for the protagonists to have different roles and interests. But the coverage of this process has greatly accentuated these differences — increasing the difficulty and diminishing the time in which to navigate it.
The presidency has always been a synergy of symbol and substance. The only nationally elected office in the country, the presidency has a unparalleled political status that offers a unique credibility. This synergy is short-lived, however, even under the best of circumstances. Under current circumstances, the office’s symbolic and substantive attributes are less and less within an Administration’s control. And as a result, so too is a legislative agenda.
About the Author
J.T. Young served in the Department of Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2004 and as a Congressional staff member from 1987 to 2000.
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Ken (Old Texican)| 9.22.09 @ 10:52AM
Hi JP
I am re pasting today on a fresh thread in hopes you will see it.
Our research :
Senate
1. 36 seats to be voted on in 2010
2. The best we can determine 9 to 12 are now a tossup.
3. two or 3 "lean" Demo that can be put in play.
Your point is well taken that some of those REPubs will neccessarily be pretty moderate "on some issues"
Our research on House seats is still pretty sketchy. We are gradually contacting tea-parties across the country to ask their help in identifying conservative candidates and getting THEM nominated and elected.
Having said all of that, our premises are much different from yours.
Our picture of what this country will look like 12 months from now is very disheartening, but sadly we believe things will get much much worse before the next elections.
We see The locusts feeding high on the hog, millions of "small" businesses going bankrupt, the dollar getting dangerously weak, if not broken entirely, and LOTS of taken for granted freedoms being curtailed.
We truly do.
We think the stage will be set for a literal political revolution to take place.
We think even a lot of self styled "liberals" will not like what is happening to them personally.
You are correct though; the House is our most fertile field for a near sweep if we can get the right candidates and work our butts off.
We have the strategy mapped out pretty well, but would certainly appreciate any insights and or options you could contribute. www.myteamusa.org
S.L. Toddard| 9.22.09 @ 6:37PM
"We see... LOTS of taken for granted freedoms being curtailed"
"Lots"? Really? Which ones? Could you name five for me?
Kurt| 9.22.09 @ 9:41PM
1) Not to give my or my childrens money to China. 2) Not to let Uncle Sam decide what medical procedures will be paid for. Dr. follows what medicare pays. 3) My freedom to invest in my retirement without ssi. 4) My freedom to do what I choose with my private property. 5) My freedom to enjoy the fruits of my labors, not to be punished by paying a tax on these labors. Really, S.L. Toddard, define in your own mind the difference between liberty and tyranny.
Kevin| 9.23.09 @ 12:22PM
Way to go Kurt! My contribution . . .
6) My freedom to bear arms being curtailed by NY state (carry permit required) - overriding federal law
7) My freedom to live in a sovereign state nearly eliminated by Supreme Court rulings that circumvent the 10th amendment
8) My freedom to have federal representation curtailed by the (ill advised ) 17th amendment
9) My parental rights trampled on by "privacy" laws applied to my minor children
10) The right to enter the job market curtailed by laws which make it illegal for the poor, minorities and unskilled to work (aka Minimum Wage)
Ken (Old Texican)| 9.23.09 @ 5:27PM
Yeah Toddard
1. you don't get to post here any more.
2. you don't get to open your mouth ANYWHERE any more.
3. You can't afford to drive your car anywhere because it is too expensive.
4. We turn off the pipelines and you cannot heat/cool your home.
5. We in the medical field retire and watch you croak.
6. We farmers retire and watch you starve.
7. We electricians retire and turn off your electricity.
8. We plumbers retire and watch you drown in your own fecal matter.
...well I could continue, but everyone else here has figured it out and you, poor soul, never will.
Al Adab| 9.22.09 @ 3:37PM
When the costs of all the current centralization begin to show next year, and certainly the year after, on tax forms, the true danger may become known.
The federal governmnet was never designed, or meant, to be the controlling entity of the American economy. Past track records alone demonstrate the folly of granting ever more managerial control to the institutions and bureaucracies of government. Why we persist in continued demands for ever more is beyond me.
Like the hedgehog, the government does "one thing well" and little else. We forget that at our peril.
Navas de Tolosa| 9.22.09 @ 4:29PM
One thing the current economic crisis has done, in a positive sense, is to remove the shutters from my eyes. I went through schooling, all the way to an advanced degree (MBA), and always thought of FDR as the saint as which he is portrayed. Well, golly, it turns out that the real screw-up was not the unfortunate Hoover but the (blessed-be-the-likeness) power-grabbing Roosevelt. It was he who turned a run-of-the-mill recession into the "great" depression. When you look at the historical GDP figures, the depths of that period were not reached until 1937. Match that with FDR's true humanistic concerns (witness his turning away of a jewish-laden freighter bearing refugees from Europe, along with the Japanese internment camps), and you've got a whole nother history. Does this ring any bells?
Kurt| 9.22.09 @ 9:44PM
AMEN BRO!
clinger| 9.23.09 @ 12:54AM
Whenever a liberhoid clown like toddard pipes in I'm reminded of my days on the grade school playground.
Baader| 9.23.09 @ 2:00AM
Reagan didnt do jackshit in his first 100 days, but go senile.