According to the New York Times‘ Peter Baker, “White House aides argue that the string of congressional victories—capped by the package of climate, health and tax provisions that finally cleared the Senate over the weekend—compares favorably to the two-year legislative record of most any other modern president, even perhaps F.D.R. and L.B.J.” In Politico, Ryan Lizza and Eugene Daniels also compare Biden to LBJ, citing the American Recovery Act ($1.9 trillion), the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act ($550 billion), the Chips and Science Act ($280 billion), and the Inflation Reduction Act: ($700 billion), for a nearly $3.5 trillion agenda. They also mention the votes that expanded NATO and addressed gun safety and toxic burn pits.

I think these recent accomplishments are noteworthy. I am not writing to dampen excitement about the story (Biden’s momentum) that dominated the political news before it was eclipsed by the search of Mar-a-Lago. However, comparing recent legislation to the 1930s or 1960s is ridiculous.

In 1964 alone, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, launched the War on Poverty with a blizzard of programs, created Food Stamps, and authorized war in Vietnam. In 1965 alone, Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act (still the frameworks for K-16 federal education policy); Medicare and Medicaid; the Voting Rights Act, the legislation that established HUD plus the Public Works and Economic Development Act; the laws creating the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts; the Hart-Celler Act, which transformed the demographics of the United States by allowing mass immigration; the Vocational Rehabilitation Act; and the Highway Beautification Act; plus major legislation against heart disease, cancer, stroke and automotive emissions.

One indicator of the significance of the Biden laws is their cost, but one must adjust the sticker price for inflation, GDP, and/or population growth. Since the annual federal budget is usually about $4 trillion, $3.5 trillion over ten years (the Biden laws have various timeframes) equals roughly 10 percent of the annual federal budget, or two percent of GDP per year. Concentrating that much money on chosen priorities, such as climate, matters. But federal spending has often increased by more than two percent of GDP from one year to the next. In 2020, it grew by 10.5 percent due to spending that Trump signed and the economy’s contraction. A ten-year budget authorization can easily be changed before the decade is up.

In any case, cost is not the only relevant measure. The laws that FDR and LBJ signed created new institutions (such as Social Security or HUD) and new rights under federal law and revised the social contract, e.g., by getting the federal government involved in K-12 schools. These institutions, rights, and structures are mostly still in place today.

I do not believe that all the laws of the 1930s and 1960s were good–in fact, some were disastrous. I do not assume that the pace of change should typically match 1964-5. I certainly do not credit LBJ’s legislative successes to his personal skills. However, the public should be able to change the society (whether I happen to agree with the changes or not), and then we should be able to revisit our decisions. Elections should have regular and substantial consequences. Then democracy matters, leaders are held accountable, voters are empowered, and the public can learn from experience.

The election of 2020 certainly made a difference, as will those of 2022 and 2024. The Democratic victory blocked Republican goals and shifted federal spending priorities by up to $3.5 trillion over 10 years. This spending may enlarge constituencies that then reshape political power in the longer run. For example, the companies that produce subsidized renewable energy may prove as durable–for better and for worse–as the hospitals and pharmaceutical companies that have been federally subsidized since the 1960s.

However, the recent regulatory bills on guns and burn pits are ridiculously modest, and the spending is not as durable or significant as basic statutes are. Biden has not yet signed a statute comparable to the elements of the New Deal or Great Society–but then, neither have his predecessors for decades. For all his bluster, Trump signed basically no consequential laws other than big temporary spending increases that had Democratic support. Obama fought for and won some modest amendments to 1960s laws on health insurance. Bush II signed painstakingly negotiated amendments to the 1964 Elementary and Secondary Education Act and expanded domestic surveillance with the USA Patriot Act. Clinton signed the abolition of Aid to Families with Dependent Children and replaced it with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and some related programs. Bush I signed no major statutes. This is a slim record for 30 years.

Overall, we expect too much of new presidents–who have limited power within a broken political system–but we expect too little of the system as a whole. Imagining that Biden’s legislative agenda rivals LBJ’s reveals how low are expectations have become.

See also: judicial activism when the legislative branch is broken; a different explanation of dispiriting political news coverage and debate etc.

Just back from a trip to Spain, I am reminded that airports in the countries I have visited other than the United States are often rather quiet places. There is no ambient music or TVs with sound. Announcements are rare. During a six-hour layover in Barcelona, I noticed just two or three announcements on the PA. Often the ceilings are high, and one gets a general sense of hush, even though the airplanes themselves presumably contribute to some background noise.

In contrast, the PA system of a US airport is in almost constant use, with boarding and gate-change announcements, frequently repeated TSA warnings and rules, and “welcomes” from the local mayor. These announcements often overlay music. I think it has become somewhat less common to blast CNN’s audio broadcast on top of everything else, but that still happens in some airports.

A National Academies study found that the average daytime ambient noise inside a US airport terminal is 66 decibels (p. 36), which approaches a washing machine, and that is without any sound from the PA system. Notably, the purpose of this NAS study was not to reduce overall noise but to ensure that TSA safety announcements are intelligible, which requires a minimum of 72-78 decibels inside an airport (p. 92). According to the CDC, that level is almost equivalent to “gas-powered lawnmowers and leaf blowers” and can cause hearing damage “after 2 hours of exposure.”

I admit that I am sensitive to noise. I often foolishly try to do something in an airport that requires concentration, like reading a difficult text or writing. But these decibel levels have documented effects on physical health and cause stress.

To interrupt passengers so constantly also seems disrespectful, as if the thousands of people at Boston’s Logan Airport have so little else to think about that they would enjoy hearing Gov. Baker tell them about Massachusetts’ friendly people, and the TSA remind them to locate exits in case of emergencies–in between constant announcements of gates and departures and five or six recurrent songs.

I first posted about this pet peeve in 2007, so it’s not just that I am agoraphobic in the wake of COVID-19. However, I can find nothing else online about excessive noise inside airports. All the complaints are about the noise caused by low-flying aircraft. I find Americans’ apparent tolerance or resignation in the face of this audio assault a little bit depressing in itself.

See also: what it looks like to live.

The recent Supreme Court decisions would matter much less if Congress regularly passed legislation that reflected popular opinion. Instead, for half a century, Congress has hardly ever enacted ambitious legislation, even when the majority party has endorsed it. In that context, an activist court poses a particular threat to democracy.

In West Virginia v EPA, the court focused on the problem of vague delegation. The Constitution vests all legislative authority in Congress, yet the EPA asserted a right to regulate power plants based on vague statutory language. In my 2000 book, The Future of Democracy, I argued that it was undemocratic to give administrative agencies broad discretion. I was actually aligned with the central argument in West Virginia v EPA: Congress should make consequential decisions. However, I had not yet realized how badly the legislative branch was broken. In the succeeding two decades, Congress has only passed a few meaningful laws: the catastrophic domestic and international reactions to 9/11, the amendments to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that were hyped as “No Child Left Behind” (and then substantially abandoned), and the tweaks on private insurance markets called “Obamacare.”

It is Congress’s job to regulate power plants. The public would support somewhat stronger environmental regulations, as would the party that currently controls the White House and both the House and Senate. Nevertheless, no one expects a new environmental bill to pass. At best, Congress could focus on that task but neglect its other goals. We face a Hobson’s choice: executive branch overreach or paralysis in the face of climate crisis.

The abortion decision is different: the court took away a constitutional right, applying an extremely problematic method for interpreting the Constitution. The court assigned power to the states, many of which will adopt policies that reflect their respective publics’ opinion. The problem with the abortion decision is not so much that democratic processes will fail at the state level (that varies by state), but that a human right has been rescinded.

Yet even here, it is worth noting that very few other countries protect a right to abortion in their constitutions or through decisions of their constitutional courts. Many more countries have enacted regular laws that permit abortions in various circumstances–broadly reflecting popular opinion. If we had a functioning Congress, then our national policy would depend on the congressional majority, and it might vary. Since I believe in a constitutional right to abortion, I would not accept such variation. Still, over time, there would usually be a national statutory right to abortion. (The current court might strike down a federal law on 10th Amendment grounds, but for now, that is speculation.)

Just 24 percent of experienced Hill staff agree that “Congress currently functions as a democratic legislature should.” Why not?

An obvious explanation for the current stalemate is the distribution of votes. The Democrats have just 48 members in the Senate, including two wildcards, plus two friendly Independents. However, neither party has accomplished very much–even with considerably larger majorities–at any time since the 1970s.

A proximate cause is the filibuster. That is certainly the immediate reason why a bill to protect abortion rights will fail in the Senate. However, it’s worth looking more deeply. After all, the Senate choses its own formal rules and creates its own culture. Why do senators vote for the filibuster even when it is so widely abused?

I used to believe the reason was money. An excellent example would be Joe Manchin’s financial ties to fossil fuels. However, it’s important not to overgeneralize from prominent anecdotes. The evidence that campaign finance affects legislative outcomes is not very compelling. To the extent that money talks, its impact would be weakest on high-salience issues, yet most of those issues are stuck. I’d add other explanations.

First, Newt Gingrich intentionally reduced legislative capacity, i.e., the expert staff support that enables legislators to develop bills. He did that less to reduce the size of the government than to centralize power in the Speaker’s office. Only five percent of Hill staffers surveyed by the Congressional Management Foundation and the Partnership for Public Service believe that Congress has adequate capacity today–a problem that is being discussed by the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.

Second, national cable news and social media encourage members of Congress to act like celebrities and pundits but do not reward legislative work. Professional reporters employed by city newspapers used to cover lawmaking regularly, focusing on their own delegations and issues of interest to their communities. Most of those reporting jobs are gone, and rank-and-file members of Congress receive much less overall scrutiny. At the same time, national cable networks fill hours with elected talking heads who opine on hot-button issues.

What about polarization? All Democrats fall to the left of all Republicans on standard, unidimensional measures of ideology. The disappearance of Dixiecrats and liberal northern Republicans has made it harder for a president to assemble a governing majority from components of the two parties. However, polarization should only create paralysis during times when the parties split control. When one party holds both houses plus the presidency, one would expect polarization to facilitate the passage of legislation.

I think partisan polarization is a somewhat misleading diagnosis. Even as candidates and voters identify with parties as labels, the parties have become extraordinarily weak institutions, with very little capacity to develop and implement coherent plans. Politicians are independent entrepreneurs with unique constellations of donors and local interest groups. Due to gerrymandering, they are much more concerned about fending off primary challengers than beating the other party in the general election. Working on a bill requires compromise and complexity that can backfire in a primary campaign.

Besides, both of the parties are cross-pressured. In this week’s New York Times/Siena poll, Democrats perform better among highly-educated whites than among people of color. No wonder the Democratic congressional caucus is “agonizing” over tax increases, which would hit a core Democratic constituency. The state with the second-lowest household income, West Virginia, seems out of reach for any kind of progressive Democrat. (Yes, West Virginia is 92.5% White, but that should not be the end of the discussion about why West Virginians vote conservatively in the 21st century.) Meanwhile, Republicans encompass low-education whites and many Latinos who wouldn’t benefit from tax cuts, plus business owners, who would.

A major ideology, such as Great Society liberalism or Reaganite neoliberalism, can orient elites toward a common end even when their grassroots constituencies are heterogeneous, but all ideologies are in rough condition today.

For me, it always comes down to civil society: how individuals join or form groups that can influence the state (or solve problems directly). Today, there are many dynamic and creative groups, and social movement participation may be at an all-time high. Thus, civil society is not in decline in a straightforward way. However, it is possible that groups are poorly configured to push legislation all the way through Congress. Ryan Grimm’s controversial piece in The Intercept about “meltdowns” in progressive organizing groups may or may not be fair and complete–I cannot tell. For me, the main takeaway is that major liberal membership organizations failed legislatively during the first year of the Biden Administration. Whether this is due to “meltdowns” or other factors, it is a problem. It is hard to think of examples in the past several decades in which membership groups have been more successful in the legislative arena.

One might still imagine that the current Congress will pass some significant legislation. But it is worth remembering how low our expectations have become. There is hardly any chance that Congress will address more than one urgent national problem by 2024. When the Supreme Court assigns responsibility to Congress, it is asking a dysfunctional entity to act.

See also: legislative capacity is not zero-sum; are Americans ‘innocent of ideology’?; a different explanation of dispiriting political news coverage and debate; and the social class inversion as a threat to democracy