The True Cost of Impeachment
How do you measure the true cost of impeaching the President?
It’s a lot more than the dollars and cents involved in holding hearings, printing transcripts, paying Congressional staffer salaries and the like.
For the nation, the true cost of impeachment is the legislation that will not get passed because Congress and the White House are focused so heavily on the impeachment process.
I’ll add the caveat that there’s no guarantee that Congress and the White House, so bitterly divided, could actually come to terms on any of these issues, let alone all of them.
It’s just much less likely that any of these things will happen because of the focus on removing the President.
Prescription drugs. Somebody’s grandmother won’t be able to afford the medications she needs for an illness that could have been prevented or controlled, because Congress never got around to finishing its work on regulating the high cost of prescription drugs.
Infrastructure. New Yorkers live in fear than an Amtrak train will crash into the pilings in antiquated Penn Station, a disaster that could have been averted had the two sides come together on an infrastructure bill.
Cash bail reform. A hot button 2020 election issue for the Democrats, this could have been decided by Congress right now, which means that poor people would not be languishing in jail for lack of access to bail money after an arrest.
Election security. The United States election process is under siege, with Russia and other state and non-state actors hoping to subvert our democratic processes. With all the attention given to impeachment, there’s little time or energy left over to focus on protecting our upcoming elections.
Gun control. Somewhere in the United States, certain children and adults walking the streets today will die violent, unnecessary deaths sometime in the future, due to the fact that a gun made its way into the hands of someone who shouldn’t have had it. That individual’s possession of the weapon could have been thwarted if an adequate background check law had come into being.
Teacher pay. Teachers are barely getting by on their salaries, which are so low compared with the value they provide our children. If Congress had been able to focus on teacher salaries and present an acceptable bill to the White House, maybe teachers wouldn’t still be spending their hard-earned dollars on school supplies.
Technology behemoths. Amazon, Google, and Facebook, and the like are fundamentally ungovernable under today’s antitrust framework. These companies operate as universes onto themselves, legally responsible to no one. Perhaps Congress could have created a new regulatory scheme to maintain the privacy and security of American citizens.
Foreign policy. Negotiations with China and North Korea could have led to better trade, intellectual property, and security deals, but not with the distraction of impeachment.
The border. The crisis at the border, the fate of the DACA people and the vexing issue of “anchor babies” could have found resolution, alleviating unnecessary human suffering, but not right now.
And who’s to say an unscrupulous actor like Vladimir Putin, or some leader we’ve never even heard of, might take advantage of the disruption in American politics to launch some sort of military action against its neighbor, or even against us?
Cervantes is credited with the expression, “Take what you like, but pay for it.”
Most observers believe the odds of the President being impeached are extremely high; the odds of him being convicted in the Senate are extremely low.
For those who believe deeply in the process, given its likely outcome, one hopes that the true cost, as outlined above, is worth it.
