What should we do when we hear that a policy has bipartisan support? Break into applause? Or hide the silverware?
Neither.
Bipartisan support tells us very little — or nothing — about the wisdom of the measure at hand. Last December, for instance, the Obama administration and Republican congressional leaders hammered out a bipartisan agreement that increased the federal deficit by $900 billion. Now, four months later, the same politicians are struggling to come to yet another deal — this one to slash the deficit.
There may be a logic here but it surely has little to do with good policy.
The truth is that bipartisanship has led to some of the most foolhardy legislation of recent decades. In 2002, a large number of congressional Democrats lined up with Republicans to authorize the use of force against Iraq. I will spare the reader the tally of death, injury, dispossession and destruction that followed. Another example of bipartisan wisdom: the now-notorious 2000 legislation that exempted most derivative products from oversight and helped to lay the groundwork for the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.
More recently, Democrats and Republicans alike supported the reappointment of Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Bernanke, let us recall, had somehow managed to miss a multi-trillion dollar housing bubble until it was too late to avoid it; this would appear — at least outside Washington’s bipartisan consensus — to be a disqualification for reappointment. (The idea that Bernanke should be rewarded because of his nimbleness in dealing with the crisis once it struck is curious. It is rather like honoring the captain of the Titanic because he managed to save half the passengers after running his ship into an iceberg.)
There are arguments in favor of bipartisanship. It can provide the political cover necessary for elected officials to make unpopular stands. It can also help governmental continuity by reducing the likelihood that a change in administrations or congressional majorities will lead to a reversal in policy. These arguments, however, cut both ways.
The provision of political cover, for instance, may actually constrain debate. Interestingly, one of the most partisan issues of recent decades — health care reform — was the subject of months of extensive and impassioned debate. December’s bipartisan deal on expanding the budget deficit, in contrast, was essentially brokered in private over the course of a couple weeks and presented to the Congress as a fait accompli.
Continuity, too, can be a mixed blessing: There is surely no virtue in sticking with a bad policy. The War on Drugs is a sobering case in point. It was declared by Richard Nixon in 1971 and has been supported by Democrats and Republican administrations ever since. The war continues without victory in sight, consigning hundreds of thousands of Americans to incarceration and spreading devastation abroad.
Does this mean that bipartisanship is a bad thing? Of course not. For every example of ruinous bipartisan legislation, there is no doubt a contrary example. But bipartisanship should not be fetishized. It is a means, not an ends. And ends count.
Joe Barnes is the Baker Institute’s Bonner Means Baker Fellow. From 1979 to 1993, he was a career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, serving in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.