Why Gridlock is Good

It has become fashionable in today’s society to argue that many things we were taught to think are bad, are actually good, and that what is good is actually bad. One major party nominee for president is applauded in certain circles for acting like a ten-year-old brat, another major party nominee is applauded in other circles for habitually lying and breaking federal law, selfishness and sin are good, and everything is turned upside down in the name of progress.

But Congressional gridlock is always bad, say those who celebrate incest. Gridlock is the ultimate evil, in a world where there is supposed to be no absolute good or evil. Gridlock means the death of children, say those who embrace abortion, because it prevents gun control legislation that would supposedly stop all mass shootings. If not for Congressional gridlock, we could have bipartisan tax reform, affordable health care and college tuition, and a thousand other wonderful proposals blocked only by Republican obstructionism. Gridlock makes a mockery of our system of constitutional government.

Gridlock, or more accurately a reasonable, federal system of checks and balances, is exactly how our government is supposed to function. The Founders may not have anticipated the rise of political parties, or the current deep ideological divide, when they drafted the Constitution, but they understood better than most how strong personalities and individuals could collide on important issues. And that, if a bad proposal was to be stopped from becoming law, there would need to be mechanisms for its prevention.

That was why so many obstacles were put up to a bill becoming law, either in the Constitution itself or in the rules and traditions that grew up in the early years of the republic. For a bill to make it through committee in the House or Senate, then through debate and final passage in a full meeting of that particular chamber, then through debate in the opposite chamber, and finally signed by the President, it would need the support of a significant number of people, and endured some compromises along the way.

Conversely, if a bill wasn’t able to make its way through this multistep process, it was likely a poor bill that needed either compromise, substantial reworking, or entirely new ideas and input to be successful. To be sure, good bills can also be caught up in this process, but in a system of limited government, preventing the passage of bad ideas into law is a goal worthy enough to make the process as a whole more difficult. The bulk of activity affecting Americans’ individual lives, the thinking went, should be taking place at the state and local level in any case.

Of course, acknowledging this would require acknowledging both the goal of a more decentralized federal government, and the fact that many of the proposed bills currently being held up by gridlock are simply bad policy. Far more advantageous, from the standpoint of ratings and fundraising, to simply heap blame on gridlock and Republican obstructionism.