In response to my “earlier post”:https://themonkeycage.org/2011/04/median_voters_and_the_budget_d.html, “Scott Adler”:http://sobek.colorado.edu/~esadler/Scott_Adler_Home.html and “John Wilkerson”:https://sites.google.com/a/uw.edu/john-d-wilkerson/ send this via email:
bq. In an earlier post John Sides suggested that perhaps observers should have ignored all of the scuffling that preceded the budget compromise that averted a government shutdown, and that we should have predicted the outcome based on the preferences of the pivotal actors in the House and Senate. While we agree that this would have constituted a good test of spatial theory, it overlooks the key dynamics of the budget standoff. The political consequences of the reversion point – a government shutdown – drove the compromise. The incentives for leaders to avoid a shutdown became increasingly pronounced as the issue gained salience – e.g. as the media focused greater attention on the drama and the potential consequences of a shutdown. When the costs of a shutdown became politically intolerable for lawmakers of both parties, the specifics of the negotiations became less central to whether the parties would find common ground. What were those costs? While much of the attention focused on whether the shutdown would benefit Obama more than the Republicans, we think that a shutdown would have had negative consequences for lawmakers of both parties. Voters don’t simply choose between Democrats or Republicans; they also choose between incumbents and challengers. Especially when control of government is divided, voters have reasons to cast a wide net.
But couldn’t this be incorporated into the spatial logic I suggested? What if the median member of the House — again, likely a moderate Republican — preferred (a) no shutdown and, as I suggested earlier, (b) cuts in government spending somewhere between the Democrats’ original goal and the $100 billion the Tea Party wanted. So if Boehner is appealing to this person, then the deal he cut seems about right. I assume the filibuster pivot in the Senate would feel similarly.
I guess I’m not sure that the costs of a shutdown were “intolerable for lawmakers of both parties.” There were “stories”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-invites-top-lawmakers-to-hash-out-budget-at-white-house-as-deadline-looms/2011/04/04/AF2t8QdC_print.html of Republicans cheering in caucus meetings at the mention of a shutdown. I presume those members didn’t find a shutdown intolerable. I think it was more “intolerable” for the pivotal members.
[NB: Adler and Wilkerson know a lot more about Congress than I do. We’ll see how long any exchange lasts before they show me up.]