More on the 'Broken Branch'

An interesting article in the NYT today which has some relevance with our discussion on the 'Broken Branch." The article reports efforts by the Obama administration's former budget director, Peter Orszag, to pry away at Congress' authority on the budget. The link is copied below but a few excerpts that I thought were particularly interesting:

"As much as anyone, Mr. Orszag has promoted and carried out an effort by the White House to pry away from Congress some of the responsibility for making hard decisions, especially when it comes to the budget. In the process, he has signaled that an administration populated from the top down by Capitol Hill alumni is intent on altering the balance of power between the branches of government. "

"In other words, the Medicare Board isn’t only a means of cutting government spending; it is a means, too, of wresting the constitutional responsibility for budgeting away from powerful committee chairmen."

"Somewhere along the way toward wooing Congress, however, Mr. Obama seems to have decided that the problem, at least where reducing the cost of government is concerned, is Congress itself. There is a sense that the legislative process just isn’t set up to work, either because of the severe partisanship in both chambers, or because lawmakers tend to run from painful choices, or because of rules that make it easy for a minority party — in this case, the Republicans — to sabotage legislation."

-Shawn