Obama versus FDR and LBJ

Nate Silver has written a post arguing that comparisons between Obama, FDR, and LBJ are unfair because FDR and LBJ had larger Congressional majorities when they passed their major legislative accomplishments:

When F.D.R. took over the Presidency in 1933, the Democrats controlled 64 percent of the Senate seats and 73 percent (!) of the House seats, counting independents who were sympathetic to the party. And those numbers only increased over the next couple of midterms -- during their peak during 1937-38, the Demorats actually controlled about 80 percent (!) of the seats in both chambers. Obama, by contrast, came into his term with 59 percent majorities in both chambers. That's not much to complain about by the standards of recent Presidencies, but is nevertheless a long way from where F.D.R. stood during his first two terms, or for that matter where L.B.J.'s numbers were during the 1965-66 period, when the bulk of the Great Society programs were implemented.

F.D.R. and L.B.J. might have been great cleanup hitters -- and you'll get no argument from me that Obama's aptitude at shepherding his agenda through Congress has been mixed, at best. But they basically spent the first several years of their Presidencies playing in the Congressional equivalent of Coors Field.

However, Silver neglects the differences in the composition of the Democratic Party in Congress between the three presidencies. The current Democratic caucus is more liberal and less ideologically diverse than the ones which passed FDR and LBJ's legislation. To illustrate, here are plots of the estimated ideological distributions by party ranging from liberal to conservative for the 73rd (1933-1934), 89th (1965-1966), and 111th Congress (2009)*:

In particular, LBJ faced a widening split between Southern and Northern Democrats on both core economic issues as well as civil rights (an issue that split both parties internally at the time). He and FDR did have two major advantages relative to Obama -- more moderate Republicans and fewer filibusters -- but it's not obvious they were playing at Coors Field.

* Technical note: These are kernel density plots of first dimension estimated ideal points from Common Space DW-NOMINATE. I've suppressed the scale on the y-axis for aesthetic reasons.

Comments

[David]

It's no insult to say that Obama, in his first year, doesn't have the political skills of perhaps the two most skillful politicians of the 20th century. A more telling comparison is George W. Bush, who got tax reform, No Child Left Behind, and prescription drug coverage in Medicare without anything like Obama's majorities. And, later, when Iraq was widely hated by most Americans, he nevertheless got Congressional approval for the surge.

I think Obama is hampered by having inept leaders of the House and Senate. Reid can't even get re-elected in his own state. Pelosi is a skillful politician, but sure doesn't give the appearance of being a stateman.

[Don the libertarian Democrat]

FDR was so powerful that he couldn't stop Deposit Insurance, even though he opposed it. I think that the Congress then had a lot more members who were fine with passing a compromise bill that wasn't perfect.

[Jinchi]

A more telling comparison is George W. Bush, who got tax reform...

Why do conservatives have this fantasy that cutting taxes is hard to do? Cutting taxes is easy. On a base level any politician would be happy to zero out the taxes his constituents pay. This is true for Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, you name it. Obama, like Bush, has had no problem getting bipartisan majorities to cut taxes.

Figuring out how to pay the bills afterwards is the hard part and is the main reason we've racked up trillions in debt since Bush first got his tax cuts enacted.

[David]

Bush's tax rate cuts led to the collection of more tax dollars, just as Reagan's and JFK's did. So, they actually reduced the deficit. The biggest cause of the current deficits is trillions of increased spending from the Democratic Congress during Bush's 2nd term and from the current Congress and Administration, although reduced tax receipts due to the recession are a substantial cause as well.

Tax rate cuts are superior to spending increases because of the issue Jinchi raised: Figuring out how to pay bills afterwards

Paying bills afterwards is easy, if the problem was a tax cut. Congress can just raise taxes back to where they were. However, paying bills afterwards is extremely difficult if the problem was a spending increase. Those who are getting government largesse don't want to give it up. And, raising taxes above rates that are already high will meet resistance and might cause a recession. That's why Obama's 10 year budget shows perpetual trillion dollar deficits.