Slow Government in a Fast World

This reflection was offered in response to a question posed at the Krasno Policy Forum at the University of North Carolina.

I am asked whether Congress is living up to its constitutional mandate as a check and balance. The question reminded me of a moment while campaigning for the U.S. Senate. I visited an elementary school in Minneapolis, and the teacher asked the students if they could name one of the three branches of government. One child confidently said, “The President.” The teacher replied, “Wonderful. Can anyone name another branch?” After a pause, another student guessed, “The media.”

Those children can be forgiven for thinking Washington consists of the president on one side and the media on the other. Increasingly, that’s how our politics behaves.

But the Constitution envisioned something very different. Congress—slow, deliberative Congress—was meant to be first among equals. Yet in recent years, it has underperformed the founders’ hopes.
A major reason is structural. Gerrymandering has created districts so lopsided that most members fear a primary challenge more than a general election. When I first ran for Congress in 2000, I challenged an incumbent even though only one challenger in a hundred succeeds. I won—and after redistricting, I was placed in a new district facing another incumbent, and won again. That was possible only because Minnesota kept districts competitive. Today, states are racing to carve safe seats out of competitive ones. As we saw recently when California voters endorsed new gerrymanders, voters themselves are demanding more partisanship, not less. And if you go against the president of your party, you risk ending up like North Carolina’s Senator Tillis—retiring because voters have little appetite for compromise. A different Congress will require different voting behavior.

At the same time, voters expect instant action. Policy debates now unfold on our phones in seconds, but Congress still moves on an 18th-century timetable. It can take months just to agree on a topline budget number, often not until after a disruptive shutdown. And that debate is not about the real drivers of our unprecedented peacetime deficits, as Social Security and Medicare both head toward insolvency in 2033. Saving these entitlements requires action. Meanwhile, Congress fights over the shrinking quarter of the budget that is discretionary.

Given these realities, it is entirely rational for modern presidents to push one major “reconciliation” bill that can pass with a simple majority, then govern largely through executive orders, regulatory enforcement, tariffs, export controls, and emergency authorities. Other than judges and the Big Beautiful Bill, Trump doesn’t need Congress for most of his agenda. He is not the cause of this dynamic; he is simply the latest manifestation of it. Would he benefit from more input from Congress? Absolutely. Someone might have suggested that imposing tariffs on coffee and bananas is not a recipe for reducing inflation.

Congress has responded by micromanaging the executive in ways the founders never intended. Nowhere is this clearer than at the Pentagon, where Congress appropriates through thousands of line items, bars new modernization programs under continuing resolutions, and mandates minimum numbers of legacy platforms the military doesn’t want but which protect jobs in key districts. This slows the modernization essential to deterring aggression. Congress over-delegates on the big things and under-delegates on the small ones. Now Trump, like Nixon, is testing the limits with impoundment—refusing to spend money Congress appropriated. We need a mutual disarmament pact: Congress legislating at a higher altitude, and the executive respecting those laws.

This matters profoundly for strategic competition. China now fields the world’s largest navy, is outspending us in total research, and is moving faster in key technologies. Yet our defense budget is at its lowest share of GDP since World War II. We are distracted by internal disputes, attacking our own leading universities, and frustrating allies with arbitrary tariffs rather than aligning with them. This is not how you prevent great-power conflict.

When I get discouraged, I recall a dinner I had with Navy pilots in Guam where I lamented our slow response to China’s rise. One pilot said, “In the end, we’ll be all right—because of our allies.” He’s right. Our alliances remain our greatest asymmetric advantage. But those alliances are only as strong as America’s own capacity to lead—to invest in research, strengthen defense, maintain fiscal discipline, and restore a Congress capable of doing its constitutional job.

Because the world will not wait for us. And strategic competition will not pause for congressional gridlock.

In line with my belief that embracing AI is essential to both personal and national success, this piece was developed with the support of AI tools, though all arguments and conclusions are my own.