Was the budget deal an overreaction to the election?

The wonkosphere has been debating why President Obama and the Democrats got such a seemingly bad deal in the budget negotiations last week. As several writers have noted, they were in a position of weakness due to their base's preference for compromise. Still, it seems clear that Obama and the Democrats were outmaneuvered in the bargaining process, which drove the outcome surprisingly close to the preferences of the median Republican in the House.

One factor that has received less attention in this debate is the influence of the November 2010 election results. Over the years, I've frequently invoked the pioneering research (PDF) of UNC's Jim Stimson and his co-authors on responses to perceived "mandate" elections, which shows that members of Congress tend to deviate from their normal voting patterns in the direction of the election result for some period of time. Stimson was quoted yesterday saying that this election did not meet the definition of a mandate:

"[The GOP is] right to be nervous about [the Ryan plan]," said James A. Stimson, a University of North Carolina political scientist and a co-author of the recent book "Mandate Politics." By his measure, the resistance of Democrats who still control the White House and Senate means Republicans cannot claim a mandate any more than Mr. Obama could upon taking office in 2009.

It's true that the 2010 election results have not been accepted as a mandate by both parties like 1964, 1980, and 1994 (the post-WWII cases Stimson and his colleagues identify). In this sense, 2010 was more like 2006 or 2008 than 1994. However, as I've suggested before, it's not clear that both parties will ever accept mandate claims in the way they previously did given the level of polarization that now exists. In this sense, 2010 may be something of a "soft mandate," empowering Republicans and pushing Obama and the Democrats to accept deals they otherwise would not have considered. Imagine a world in which Republicans kept the House in 2008 and maintained control in 2010, but the Senate and presidency were configured the same way they are today. Would the GOP have been able to pull off that deal? I'm skeptical.

The irony is that Stimson and his colleagues' research shows that mandate perceptions quickly wear off as politicians realize they have overstated the extent to which public opinion has shifted. Congressional Democrats, for instance, spent most of the Reagan years undoing the 1981 budget, which was passed in a mandate-induced panic. It's likely that this budget deal (and likely future concessions before the debt ceiling vote) will be viewed in a similarly negative fashion by Democrats in the future.

Update 4/12 1:38 PM: TNR's Jon Chait notes that Republicans didn't overreact in the same way after the last two elections, which they blamed (implausibly) on not being conservative enough. It's true. I've previously questioned whether Republicans would ever acquiesce to a mandate interpretation again:

The most important question, however, is whether a "mandate" response is even possible in 2009. The last perceived Democratic mandate was after the 1964 election. Since then, the GOP has become a vastly different party. In the current political context, it's hard to imagine too many Republican incumbents voting for, say, Obama's initial tax and budget proposals the way many Democrats did with Reagan in 1981. Won't the Grover Norquists of the world threaten to back primary challengers against anyone who helps Obama pass his agenda?

Democrats may not agree that the GOP has a mandate for change to the extent they did after the 1994 election, but the ideological asymmetry between the parties means that they are far more vulnerable to post-election panics of the sort we're seeing now.

[Cross-posted to HuffPost Pollster]

Comments

[jim filyaw]

the democrats have been scared witless since the 80 election. how many genuinely progressive programs have been seriously pushed by the democrats since that time? does anyone really pretend that any one of the congresses since would have gone out on a limb for a medicare, a legal services organization, or even an e.p.a.? at best, its been lukewarm attempts to hang on to the shreds of the new deal and great society. as for the 'blue dogs', please spare me democrats like baucus and nelson.

[David in Cal]

Perception of the deal seems to depend on one's political orientation. As Brendan points out, the liberal New Republic and our liberal blogger think the Dems lost. OTOH the conservative John Podhoretz thinks the specifics of the deal are so bad that freshmen Republicans may be angry enough so that we’ll end up with a shutdown after all. http://hotair.com/archives/2011/04/12/analysis-budget-deal-only-reduces-real-discretionary-spending-by-around-15-billion/

Regardless of which party won, I think the American people lost. After the agree-upon cuts, the overall spending baseline for the year will still end up being $773 billion higher than it was in 2008. And the planned deficit is still in the range of $1 1/2 trillion. These levels threaten our economy and threaten the value of our currency.

[Andrew]

Brendan, I'm surprised to see you just accepting the "outmaneuvered" argument. Have you read the reporting on how the alleged $38B in cuts is really less than half that? Have you considered the possibility that Obama wants to cast himself as a spending cutter to help his reelection?

[bnyhan]

Yes, I have considered it. A loss that's less bad than you thought is still a loss. Wanting to look like a spending cutter and actually cutting spending the year before you're up for re-election are two different things.