The Obama administration has seen passage of several pieces of legislation that are the cornerstones of its agenda. But the details of health reform and financial regulation, for example, buried deep in amendments and the finer points of thousands of pages of explanation, can mean unintended consequences, or they may be gifts for lobbying groups. Frequent and periodic reviews of these landmark laws with the goal not of derailing them, but of making them better, is the kind of follow-through that is needed to get the best out of them.
The administration’s legislative agenda that has been made into law ranges over a broad landscape. Facing a crippling recession, the administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress first implemented the Bush administration’s bank bail-out plan. Then it passed an $827 billion stimulus spending package designed to keep the economic pump primed. Bailout loans for two of the nation’s big three automakers also were approved.
Then came the fight for credit card reform legislation, a body of law aimed at protecting consumers from predatory lending practices by purveyors of plastic. Along the way, the college loan business was taken from private banks and given to the federal government, and the Cash for Clunkers pro-gram boosted auto sales and removed gas guzzlers from the road.
Next was the titanic struggle over health care. The administration won what several other presidents over the last century had failed to win by creating a new health care system that provides the means for 90 percent of Americans to pay to see a physician. More recently, Congress passed the financial reform bill. It creates a series of firewalls throughout the banking and investment industries, and again, empowering government to protect consumers.
Congressional Democrats and West Wing staffers may be tempted to exchange high-fives and head to the beach, but a critical final piece is needed. The chairmen and chairwomen of the committees of jurisdiction for each major piece of legislation should schedule hearings for September and January to take up problems with these sweeping new laws.
Republicans may want to use the opportunity to try to derail the changes, but they would better serve by bringing to light unintended consequences or areas where predicted benefits failed to materialize. This is an essential part of governing, but one that is resisted until a wheel is especially squeaky.
The laws that created Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the Clean Air and Clean Water acts and other bold measures had to be revisited and tweaked to ensure they were working. Sen. Olympia Snowe has suggested the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship hold quarterly oversight hearings on the Wall Street reform law.
This approach makes sense and it would be wise to extend it to all these new laws to ensure they are working as intended and to fix them if they are not.