Murray, Ryan budget deal style worth imitating

As we slog through another depressing period of obstruction and shutdown threats in Congress, it might be worth looking backward to another moment that felt impossibly polarized: Autumn 2013, when Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Paul Ryan produced a budget agreement that many observers considered unattainable.

To be sure, the agreement they reached was modest. Though it prevented a series of brutal cuts and kept the government operating without the constant threat of new deadline showdowns, it was unsatisfying to the most vocal and passionate voices on the right and the left. But in these days of extremity and bad faith, we seem to have forgotten that this is what political compromise is: less than all you want, in exchange for something you can tolerate if you must.

The Murray-Ryan budget is being held up in a new paper from the Brookings Institution as an example of how the two extraordinarily polarized parties might produce useful agreements moving forward. With the silly standoff over Department of Homeland Security funding behind us, and with another budget debate looming later in the year, it’s a highly relevant subject.

“That they succeeded makes them unusual in these polarized times,” wrote Jill Lawrence, a journalist and author of the report, “and provides a hopeful template for future negotiators.”

Hope? In Congress?

Surely, we should pay attention.

The paper is the first in a series of case studies in important government negotiations being produced by Brookings, a centrist think tank. Lawrence, who has written about politics and government for many years, said she was drawn toward the notion of examining and highlighting something that actually worked, given the level of dysfunction dominating the Capitol.

“I’d love to see this town work better and see the government work better,” she said. “If you can move the ball a yard ahead, I think that’s great.”

If the success of the budget negotiations is a positive sign, it must also be seen as a sign of how incredibly, ridiculously bad things have gotten in Washington, D.C., – because the principle reasons cited for Murray and Ryan’s success would seem to come from a grade school primer on politics: find common ground, don’t demonize, be realistic, operate from shared facts, take impossibilities off the table.

“This was, in the scheme of things, a relatively modest deal,” Lawrence said. “It certainly wasn’t the Grand Bargain that the president and Speaker Boehner had been going for. … On the other hand, I can’t really think of two more opposite people than Patty Murray and Paul Ryan and the fact that they were able to get together and reach an agreement is hopeful.”

Lawrence’s paper lays out the difficulties facing Murray and Ryan, the nature of their negotiations, and the results. It’s worth a read ( www.brookings. edu/research/papers/ 2015/02/profiles- negotiation-murray-ryan- lawrence).

In 2013, Congress was, as it is now, slightly more popular than ebola. Conservatives had provoked a 16-day government shutdown in an attempt to block Obamacare. Congress’ overall approval ratings sank to 9 percent, and congressional Republicans were getting (and deserving) most of the blame. The breakdown in trust between President Obama and Boehner seemed complete. A stopgap measure funding government operations had set a fiscal cliff of January 2014 for a longer-term deal to avoid sequestration and find a way to fund the government with more stability.

“It took an autumn of extreme dysfunction and public relations angst to bring about official talks on the wildly disparate House and Senate budgets,” Lawrence writes. “Murray went to the floor 21 times to urge such a conference but was rebuffed.”

Murray, the liberal from Seattle, was chairman of the Senate budget committee and had recently orchestrated the passage of that chamber’s first budget in four years. Ryan, the small-government conservative from Wisconsin and former running mate of Mitt Romney, chaired the House budget committee. Despite the obstacles, both lawmakers and their parties were motivated to prevent sequestration, which was about to deliver painful military and domestic spending cuts.

One key to their negotiation, the paper said, was kindergarten-simple: they got to know each other and found points of shared interest. These included football – Packers and Seahawks – and fishing. Neither burned the other in the press. They operated in private and away from the most polarizing figures in their parties.

They also set modest goals, and recognized each other’s deal-breakers. The GOP would not go for tax increases or even closing tax loopholes. Democrats wouldn’t swallow cuts in the large social programs. In the end, they agreed to a package of new fees to raise revenue, some increases in pension contributions by federal workers, and restore crucial funding for government services without adding to the deficit.

The most conservative and liberal members of Congress were displeased. Ryan probably paid the largest political price, with several prominent big-money groups lambasting the deal and anyone who voted for it, primarily because it made insufficient cuts or long-term changes.

A similar dynamic exists now, of course, with some of the newest, most conservative members of Congress seemingly yearning for shutdowns and games of economic chicken with the country’s future. The Murray-Ryan budget expires in a few months, and Obama has proposed a budget that is said to build on theirs. Republicans have taken both chambers of Congress, which definitely changes the dynamic in negotiations. And neither Murray nor Ryan are in the same committee positions anymore.

As we drive toward another budget standoff, can we look for the Murray-Ryan model to take hold?

“It’s very uncertain,” Lawrence said. “But I think this is a good example to hold up. … We’ll see how willing the new players are to follow the best practices these two people pioneered.”