Fact check - Democratic President v. Republican Congress

Republicans on the stump spend a lot of time talking about President Obama's executive orders - that he is exercising power he doesn't have.  On the other hand Democrats have alleged for the last few years that Republicans are more interested in obstructing Obama than in doing the peoples business and Obama says he is using Executive orders because problems need to be solved and the Republican Congress is doing nothing to solve them.  

As a voter the claims that the Executive Orders are unconstitutional is just background static I ignore.  Obama has his lawyers who say they are constitutional, Republican lawyers say they are not constitutional.  I may be many years from law school, but not so far as to have forgotten how fuzzy the Constitution is when applied to the relative powers of the President and Congress.  To me this issue will be determined by the ideological orientation of the Supreme Court that addresses the issue at some point in the future.   

But two of the three Republican front runners dissing Obama's executive orders most vehemently are currently members of the Senate.  How Congress has behaved during Obama's term in office compared to past Congresses seems to have some bearing on whether Republicans have been more interested in obstructing Obama than in doing the peoples business.  Objective measures of congressional activity can provide some evidence of whether Republicans have been willing to engage in good faith efforts to compromise with other viewpoints to move the country forward.  So I looked back at Congressional data back to 1973.

To me the objective facts support the theory the Republicans for the last 7 years have been more interested in undermining Obama than in doing the peoples business, but decide for yourself.  

Summary of the data:

The average number of laws enacted per year

From 1973 through 2008 - the pre-Obama period, regardless of the party of the President and who controlled Congress, Congress enacted an average of 298 laws per year.  The lowest average was 228 during GW Bushes first 6 years, the highest was 385 during the Carter years in the late 70's.

In Obama's first administration, even with a Democratic Congress the number of laws enacted per year dropped to 192.5, well below even the lows of the GW Bush years.  Since the Republicans regained control of Congress in 2011 the total of enacted bills has dropped to 140 per year, less than half what was typical from 1973 to 2010.  

Some might suggest that fewer bills passed by Congress is a good thing.  But no need to change or add laws would suggest that the status quo under Obama is pretty good.  But according to Republican primary candidates the country is in a disasterous decline.  One would therefore think Congress ought to be doing more, not less.  

Vetoes
The drop in enacted laws isn't because Obama is vetoing bills.  During the prior periods when a President of one party dealt with a Congress controlled by the other party the President averaged 8.6 vetoes per year.  In the five years since Republicans took control of Congress in 2011 Obama has vetoed an average of 1.4 bills per year.  This is lower than what Jimmy Carter vetoed per year when he was working with a Congress of his own party (1.7 per year).  I doubt that Republicans are afraid to send legislation to Obama.  It seems more likely to me this is evidence of their focus on marginalizing him by not dealing with him.

Number of Bills Congress actually casts a vote on per year.
Republicans might argue fewer bills have gone to Obama because they can't work with Democrats.  But since the party that controls Congress controls the ability to bring legislation to a vote (through their control of committees) how many bills Congress is allowed to vote on seems to reflect how interested the controlling party is in the negotiation that makes the democratic process work.  

In any given year thousands of bills are introduced in Congress.  A tiny fraction actually get to any kind of floor or committee vote.  Since 2011 fewer bills have been allowed by the Republican leadership to go to any kind of vote than any period in the last in the last 43 years.  From 1973 to 2010 an average of 303 bills per year went to a vote.  Looking specifically at years where Congress dealt with an administration representing the other party 321 bills per year got to a vote.  In the last five years the average number of bills that the Republican leadership allowed to go to a vote was 241.

Side note - Democrats are more democratic
The statistics on how many bills get a vote also reveal that prior to Obama when a Republican Congress is dealing with a Democratic President (Clinton - 1995 to 2000) Republicans allowed an average of 275 bills per year to go to a vote.  When a Democratic Congress has worked with a Republican President, in contrast, an average of 333 bills go to a vote.

Thus statistically Democrats are - well - more democratic.  They are not as inclined to use control of Congress to choke off votes as the Republicans.   

To me this all suggests the problem isn't that Democrats aren't willing to work with Republicans, it is that Republicans have always been inclined to use every lever available to exercise their power to do things their way and have been particularly prone to that approach during the last 5 years.

Source of the Data Summary
This compilation was compiled from data at 
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics
Numbers are average number of bills per year during the specified period. Administrations highlighted in red indicate Congress controlled by opposing party - presumably the most accurate comparable to Obama's last 5 years.

1973-76 - Richard Nixon/Gerald Ford administration

Republican President, Democratic Congress.  

292.75 went to a vote but did not pass

375.25 enacted

15.25 vetoed

1977-80 - Carter Administration 

Democratic President and Democratic Congress.

290 went to a vote but did not pass

385 enacted

7 vetoed

1981-86 - Reagan Administration

Republican President & Senate, Democratic House.

267.33 went to vote but did not pass

307.16 enacted

8.66 vetoed

1987-88 - Reagan Administration 

Republican President, Democratic Congress.

289 went to a vote but did not pass

380.5 enacted

8 vetoed

1989 to 1992 - Bush Administration

Republican President, Democratic Congress.

319.25 went to a vote but did not pass

318.75 enacted

10.75 vetoed

1993-94 - Clinton Administration

Democratic President, Democratic Congress

251 went to a vote but did not pass

236 enacted

0 vetoed

1995-2000 - Clinton Administration

Democratic President, Republican Congress 

275.16 went to a vote but did not pass

224.16 enacted

5.83 vetoed

2001 to 2006 - GW Bush Administration

Republican President, Republican Congress

313.83 went to a vote but did not pass

228.33 enacted

.2 vetoed (1 in 6 years)

2007-08 - GW Bush Administration

Republican President, Democratic Congress

430 went to a vote but did not pass

230 enacted

3.5 vetoed

2009-10 - Obama administration, Democratic President, Democratic Congress

300.5 went to a vote but did not pass

192.5 were enacted

1 vetoed

2011 to 2015 - Obama administration 

Democratic President, Republican Congress

241.8 went to a vote

140.8 enacted

1.4 vetoed

Police Training

All who watch the TV news or get their news online are now used to seeing videos of 6 or 8 police officers with weapons drawn, probably all wearing protective vests, confronting one unarmed or poorly armed suspect.  The video's seldom reveal a suspect making any kind of threatening action toward the police, yet one officer evidently feels threatened and fires his weapon then the suspect is killed in a hail of bullets.

The reaction to the shooting is depressingly predictable.  Community outrage as the city and police officers and their union stand by the officers arguing the officers were threatened so the shooting was justified under their protocols.

Apparently the protocols and police training in many jurisdictions are oblivious to the notion of proportional response.  They seem to be following the tactical military view that any response must be with overwhelming force.  In effect it often means anyone who challenges their authority either submits or is, effectively, executed.

When confronted by a suspect that is unarmed or is armed with a knife, all officers draw their weapons.  Why?  One bullet could probably disable a suspect in almost any circumstance yet it seems like if one officer fires nearly every other officer is going to fire reflexively.  Why can't one officer or two officers be designated as the lead officer with a weapon drawn and the others be prepared with non-lethal defense mechanisms?  Why aren't police departments developing and using nets or other non lethal physical restraint options?

In our effort to protect officers we have become much too tolerant of the use of lethal force.  I believe the protesters in San Francisco and Chicago are correct - the problem is at the top.  Until Mayors and Police Chiefs start getting sacked for the actions of their trigger happy cops no change is going to happen.

Dying Shouldn't Be Hard

Death is a fact of life.  We all die at some point.  Yet we as a society seem incapable of viewing death as a fact of life we can manage, except to spend enormous resources to keep people alive, even if they are ready for death.

My mother is currently in a skilled nursing facility where she has been for many months.  She has Alzheimer's so no longer can recognize her family, her attention span is non-existent, her life is spent in bed unless they bring in a machine to lift her up to sit her in a wheelchair so can be in a different position.  She is largely oblivious to what is going on around her, except to be fearful of loud noises.  She cannot eat without someone working patiently at spooning food into her mouth.  What she has lost in life is irrevocably gone.  She will never be able to converse with her children, or walk outside, or even sit on the sidelines at a family gathering and have any idea who the people are or what is going on.  

About 20 years ago I was helping her set up legal paperwork to manage her life as she moved into old age.  In my conversations with her she was clearly comfortable with the fact she was going to die at some point and wanted no extraordinary measures to keep her alive - she did not want to be a burden on others, and in particular her children and grandchildren.  There is no doubt in my mind if at that time she could have viewed what she has become now she would be very unhappy with her current situation and if given the option would have chosen assisted death at some predetermined point in the deterioration without hesitation.  But there was not then, nor is there now, any legal way for someone to chose to die at a point in the future where their options in life deteriorate to a point they find intolerable.   

Another person I was close to just passed at 96 years old.  Her life was pleasant enough in the assisted living place in which she lived her last years.  But her life was shrinking as her capabilities declined.  She expressed the desire to just die a number of times.  Finally she just stopped eating and drinking.  It is not a pretty decline.  Hospitals and Hospice services do wonderful work making it as comfortable as possible but one has to ask - with all the wonders of modern technology why does someone have to starve and dehydrate themselves to death if they are done with life?

We as a society make it astonishingly difficult for ill or elderly people to choose to leave life.  The worst case scenario folks, maybe in part because they haven't come to terms with the fact they will die someday, come up with all sorts of reasons why the law must rigidly control death.  Most the reasons are rooted in the notion kids will be knocking off their parents over money or property, .

As medicine continues to develop techniques to prolong life we need to do more to help folks who are done with life.  It is nuts to be telling folks in their 80's or 90's they cannot chose to end their life.

Religion and Altruism

An recent study looked at altruism among religious and non religious folks.  The study found the children of folks that identified themselves as non religious demonstrated more spontaneous altruism than the children of folks who identified themselves as religious.

The study looked at 1170 families and focused on one child in each family between the age of 5 and 10.  Using a series of forms asking questions about beliefs they broke the participants up into groups according to how religious each family reported itself to be.

They then had the child from each family play a game whereby each child was given 30 attractive stickers and told they could keep 10, but that the child could give away some of his 10 stickers to schoolmates who were not able to take part.  They were given a few minutes to decide whether to give some of their 10 stickers away.

The non-religious children gave away an average of 4.1 stickers. The children from families reporting themselves as religious gave away 3.3 stickers on average.  Muslims and Christians were by far the largest religious beliefs reported, there was little statistical difference between the Muslim and Christian children, Muslims gave away 3.2 on average, Christians 3.3.  Further the researchers found statistically the more religious a family reported themselves to be, the fewer stickers children were willing to give away.

The religious / non religious relationship held regardless of wealth and status (although rich children generally gave more stickers away than poor children).   The results were also contradictory with the parents reported perceptions of their child's sensitivity to injustice.  Religious parents generally evaluated their children as more sensitive than the non-religious parents evaluated their children.

Query - Is this a function of religious training effecting children's judgement?  Or is this self selection - parents who are less altruistic are more likely to feel a need fulfilled by religion?

Relying on report in the Economist (11.7.15 - p.77).  The study was authored by a University of Chicago developmental nueroscientist in collaboration with researchers in Canada, China, Jordon, South Africa and Turkey, was published in "Current Biology".

Markets Need Governing

Lots of politicians still make decisions based on the the ideological position government should stay out of markets.  It is a view that celebrates ideology over reality.  Governments are far from perfect, they are composed of people after all, but markets are also composed of people and are equally imperfect.

Markets push individual companies seeking competitive advantage to pay as little wages as possible, even though when all companies are doing the same thing it is shrinking the consumer base that supports the economy.  It's in everyone's interest to insure that markets spread the wealth through the population to insure maximum circulation of money but more often than not market mechanisms do the opposite.

It is in the nature of sellers in markets to seek a monopoly. If we allow monopolies even the companies that gain a monopoly lose.  They may in the long run have more wealth in comparison to others but their wealth will be as a percentage of a smaller economy.  Government needs to preclude monopolies.

Corporations and financial markets love mergers even though they defeat the competitive nature of markets that make them work.  Much of the time the main purpose of a mergers is to try to skate as close to a monopoly as you can.  A competitive market requires government oversight of business mergers to control the market efforts to achieve monopoly.

In a true free market there would be no such thing as a corporation.  Corporations are fictions invented by government which grant collections of individuals special powers and protections.  Maintaining a vibrant democracy and a strong economy requires that we recognize that corporations are not people, they are organizations created by government and can and should be regulated by government.

Voters should boycott Presidential Debates

The Presidential debates are not about policy, they are entertainment that suits the purposes of the campaigns and the media hosts.   The format is about performance and entertainment not critical examination of ideas and issues.

Most of the time the candidates are smothering us in platitudes and glittering generalities rather than real substantive facts and analysis.  The rest of the time they are pandering to the prejudices of voting blocks they are trying to capture.  They are a beauty contest, where the winner is going to be determined by appearances and mannerisms - or who is having a bad day.

For the media they are an opportunity to have 50 million listeners and make a bundle from advertising.  The moderators generally may try once or twice to ask a halfway probing question, but even when they do the candidate talks around difficult issues and then the moderator moves on.

Presidential debates focus our attention on superficial aspects of the campaign.  If you aspire to more serious policy understanding, I suggest you don't pollute your mind with the debates.  If enough folks boycott perhaps we will get a format that is meaningful.

The Crime of Illegal Immigration

There are laws that are intended to protect people from one another.  Murder, robbery, assault, theft, rape, for example. This type of law needs to be taken very seriously to maintain a civil society.  We need to do all that we can to prevent their occurrence and punish the wrongdoer.

Then there are laws that are about organizing society.  Telling us where we can or can't park.  How fast we can go on the freeway.  When we can cross the street and when we can't.   They second type of law is not so serious.  Sure we need to enforce them to prevent anarchy.  But in fact if we are honest with ourselves almost all of us break these types of laws from time to time.   We speed so we won't be late to an appointment.  We park illegally because we need to do some quick errand.  Maybe we exaggerate the value of a deduction on our tax return.

Here in the San Francisco Bay area if I go out and run errands I am mixing with immigrants from many countries, some legal, some illegal. They are just people, trying to live their life, raise a family, build a better life for their kids.  Someone speeding is much more of  threat.  Someone double parked on a busy street while they run an errand is more irritating and inconvenient.

Economists who have studied immigration seem to have no doubt immigrants pay far more in taxes than we spend on social benefits they receive from the government.  Immigrants usually do jobs none of us will do because they are hard work and they pay little.  The damage caused by illegal immigration seems to be largely rooted in speculative generalizations. 

It's hard for me to imagine Donald Trump never drives faster than the speed limit, never exaggerates a deduction, never breaks any law whatsoever.  

Brings to mind Jesus's admonition.  Lot of stones are being cast in the immigration debate.