Let's Make A Deal

The stimulus bill has passed Congress with almost no Republican votes: 3 in the Senate, 0 in the House.

Republicans hung tough, and the result is a bill that reflects Democratic goals – and pays off Democratic constituencies.

Probably that was the way the bill was going to turn out no matter what. If so, Republicans did not pay a big price for shunning the process.

But there’s a difference between “not paying a big price” and “winning an actual victory.”

These kinds of party line fights may energize Republicans in Congress and mobilize the dwindling Republican base. But in the aftermath, there is nothing but loss.

Between the changes to unemployment compensation – and Medicaid – and welfare – this bill adds up to the most important reshaping of the American welfare state since the middle 1960s. Republican views were not represented, Republican voices went unheard.

In consequence, some of the changes turned out worse than they had to (especially welfare) – and those changes that were positive (a federal subsidy to help laid-off workers continue to buy private-sector health insurance) are received by voters as purely Democratic achievements.

On the stimulus, these losses were unavoidable.

But next on the congressional docket are two huge issues where Republicans will need a very different strategy: health care and climate change.

On health care especially, Republicans need to wake up: a big reform is coming. It’s not 1993. The Clinton health plan came at a time when Democrats had less power (Clinton had won only 42% of the vote). In 1993, conservative Democrats like Louisiana’s Sen. John Breaux still held the balance of power in Congress. President Clinton made a series of elementary tactical blunders that Barack Obama will not repeat: Michelle will not be leading the healthcare task force this time. Above all: the mood of the country is much more bleak than it was in 1993. It’s corporate America as much as unions and activists that is demanding help now, and what corporate America wants, it usually gets.

If change is coming, Republicans need to be part of it. Health care change can be shaped in ways that are better or worse from a Republican point of view. We have red lines: no direct government delivery of health services. But we also have compromises we can live with: the amount of subsidy to the currently uninsured, for example.

The same is true on climate. Cap and trade that delivers big benefits to incumbent industries is obnoxious. A carbon tax that could replace the payroll tax should be very acceptable.

Once passed, the health and climate bills will be very difficult to alter. They will become part of the very structure of American society and economy, like Medicare or the home mortgage deduction. If these laws are written without reference to our views, they will reshape American society without reference to our views.

But if Republican views are to be heard, Republicans need to make a strategic decision for cooperation where possible.

Instead of the fantasy of another 1993 and 1994, we need the imagination to see a possibility for a different and better governing majority in this country - one that reflects the enterprise values of Republicans and moderate Democrats, not the welfare values of a Nancy Pelosi. As ever in Congress, though, you get only as much as you are prepared to give.

On the stimulus, we stood our ground – and got rolled right over. That will happen again and with much more disastrous effect with health and climate. It’s a new time and a new situation, and it calls for new methods.