I know I've been preaching and warning about this for a while but I honestly think that any party getting total control over government is a VERY bad idea. Apparently now I have some numbers to back it up. Also before the article I would like to point out that Clinton's best years came with divided government. In fact his presidency wasn't looking to good when the Democrats had complete control over the goverment (1993-1995). With that said I predict that Obama will lose his Democratic majority in 2010 and in turn move on to one of the more succesful presidencies in history.
A Case for Divided Government
For those of you with a partisan bent, I have some bad news:
Our federal government may work better (less badly) when at least one chamber of Congress is controlled by a party other than the party of the president. The general reason for this is that each party has the opportunity to block the most divisive measures proposed by the other party. Other conditions, of course, also affect political outcomes, but the following types of evidence for this hypothesis are too important to ignore:
- Point One. The rate of growth of real (inflation-adjusted) federal spending is usually lower with divided government.