The Senate is what matters these days because it is democratically elected, whereas the House is a gerrymandered morgue.
I want to say two things about contemporary politics and the
Senate. The Senate may be a
deliberative body, but it is not made up of people who know very much outside
of politics. On the issue that I know
well, human genetic engineering, there are less than half a dozen Senators who
know much, or even as much as I know. I
“know” enough biology on this subject to be able to talk to biologists in the
field, like the difference between germ line cells and other cells including those at
the totipotent stage.
The Senate defers to the knowledgeable senators on the subjects they know and then everyone else frames the overall issues in political terms. The debate on human genetic engineering was understood by a few and the rest of the Senate transformed the subject into pro- and anti-abortion; a subject to which it has little connection.
The chance to pass meaningful legislation on human genetic engineering is in the hands of one man, Leon Kass of the University of Chicago, who led the commission on the subject. He set out to herd a group of angry cats and got them to agree on a wide range of elements in the issue. If he can hold his coalition together on the main points and write that into legislation, we’ll get a good bill. Unfortunately there isn’t much political will on the matter.
The opposite seems to be the case with Social Security and
private investment accounts. The Senate
on this issue, has less than half a dozen members who understand the technical
matters involved. The rest of the
Senate will act along party lines. The politics in this matter are hot, there
is plenty of political will.
My only observation is that no one, I mean no one, under thirty five that I have ever met, believes that they will receive the money they are paying into Social Security. I’ve talked to people with bachelor degrees in economics who believe Social Security has no future, people who understand that it is a transfer tax.
This means one thing to me. The stronger the Democratic Party opposition to S.S. private accounts, the more young people will shift to the Republican Party. There is an age divide on this issue where one side (people under 35) are 100% opposed to the current Social Security system.