6. Heroes and Villains of the Modern Era: The Barack Obama Presidency — Economic Recovery, Healthcare Reform, and Political Change (2009–2012)

My Name is John Lewis: From an Alabama Farm to the United States Congress

My first congregation was a flock of chickens. I was born in 1940 near Troy, Alabama, and one of my chores on our farm was tending the birds. I wanted to be a preacher, so I preached to them. A chicken will listen about as long as it pleases. In town, I had questions I wanted grown people to hear. Why could a white child walk into the public library and borrow a book when a Black child could not? Then I heard a young minister named Martin Luther King Jr. on the radio. He was asking the kinds of questions I had been carrying around, and people were answering him with their feet.

Learning to Stay in My Seat

In Nashville, Tennessee, we practiced before we ever sat down at a lunch counter. One student would play the customer who wanted us gone. Another would sit on the stool and learn to hold steady through the insults. In 1960, we took those seats downtown and asked to be served. I was arrested. The following year, I joined Black and white Freedom Riders traveling together on interstate buses. In Rock Hill, South Carolina, men beat me when I tried to enter a whites-only waiting room. In 1963, at twenty-three, I stood at the Lincoln Memorial to speak at the March on Washington. I spoke for young people who knew how much courage it took just to sit on a stool.

What I Carried Across the Bridge

On March 7, 1965, I packed an apple, an orange, a toothbrush, and a book into my backpack. I expected to spend the night in jail. Hosea Williams and I led about six hundred people out of Selma, Alabama, to march for voting rights. At the top of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, we could see state troopers waiting below. They advanced with clubs and tear gas. A trooper struck my head and fractured my skull. Americans saw the attack on television. Five months later, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. Behind his signature stood people who had gone back to the courthouse to register, sometimes risking their jobs and their lives.

A Seat in Congress

In 1986, voters in Georgia’s Fifth District elected me to the United States House of Representatives. In January 2009, I stood at the Capitol as Barack Obama took the oath of office. Afterward, I asked him to sign a photograph. He wrote, “Because of you, John.” I thought of the people who belonged in those words with me. I served in Congress for the rest of my life. Near the end, in 2020, I still had something to ask of young people. Learn what happened on that bridge. Then look around your own town. Whose voice is missing when decisions get made? Pull up a chair for that person. And when your own turn comes to speak, take it.

From Selma to Inauguration Day - Told by John Lewis

Before I tell you what a president wrote to me on Inauguration Day, let me tell you about a courthouse in Selma, Alabama. In the early 1960s, a Black citizen could go there to register to vote and face questions about the Constitution that would have troubled a law student. The registrar decided whose answers were good enough. A person who tried to register could lose a job just for making the trip. In Dallas County, where Selma was the county seat, only about two percent of eligible Black citizens were registered. Local people, including a woman named Amelia Boynton, had spent years helping their neighbors get their names on those rolls. By the time the television cameras came, those folks had already done some of the bravest work. home.nps.gov

What We Could See from the Bridge

On Sunday, March 7, 1965, Hosea Williams and I walked at the head of about six hundred people bound for Montgomery, the state capital. I was twenty-five. In my backpack I carried an apple, an orange, a toothbrush, and a book. I had packed for jail. The Edmund Pettus Bridge rose high enough over the Alabama River that, until we reached the crest, we couldn’t see what was waiting on the other side. Below us stood rows of state troopers. An officer ordered us to disperse. Hosea asked for a word with him. Within moments the troopers advanced. One struck me in the head with a club and fractured my skull. That evening, Americans watching television saw what happened when their fellow citizens tried to walk to their own state capital. The day became known as Bloody Sunday. home.nps.gov

What Changed After Sunday

Two weeks later, people set out across that same bridge with a federal court order protecting their right to march. On March 25, some twenty-five thousand gathered in Montgomery. Then, on August 6, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. Here is what that meant back at the courthouse. In places covered by the law, officials could no longer require a Black applicant to pass a literacy test, and federal examiners could register voters when local officials stood in the way. A neighbor who had spent years asking for a place on the voting rolls could finally help choose the sheriff, the members of Congress, and the president. In 1986, voters in Georgia elected me to the United States House of Representatives. home.nps.gov

Four Words at the Capitol

On January 20, 2009, I stood on the inaugural platform at the United States Capitol. Before Barack Obama took the oath, he came over and hugged me. Then I watched him become the first Black president of the United States. At the luncheon afterward, I took a commemorative photograph over to him and asked him to sign it. He wrote four words before his name. “Because of you, John.” My name was on that photograph, but consider how many people it took to get us there. There was room beside me on that platform for a congressman from Georgia. There could never have been room enough for every neighbor who had stood in line at that Alabama courthouse and come back to try again.

My Name is Alan B. Krueger: What a Paycheck Can Tell You

I grew up in Livingston, New Jersey, and went to Cornell thinking I might become a lawyer. Then economics caught my interest. Suppose two people work equally hard, but one earns twice as much as the other. You can come up with half a dozen explanations over lunch. The harder part is figuring out which one holds up when you look at their paychecks. That kind of detective work appealed to me. I earned my doctorate at Harvard in 1987 and joined the faculty at Princeton. A few years later, my home state handed me a puzzle worth investigating.

The Experiment Across the Delaware River

In 1992, New Jersey raised its minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.05 an hour. Across the Delaware River, Pennsylvania kept its rate at $4.25. Many economists expected New Jersey restaurants to cut jobs as wages rose. My colleague David Card and I had a way to check. We surveyed fast-food restaurants on both sides of the state line before and after the raise. Employment at the New Jersey restaurants held up at least as well as it did at the Pennsylvania restaurants. One study could tell us only so much. Still, anyone who wanted to know what that particular raise had done now had to reckon with what happened behind those counters.

When Does a Recovery Reach the Kitchen Table?

I served as chief economist at the Labor Department under President Bill Clinton. In 2009, I joined President Barack Obama’s Treasury Department in the middle of the worst downturn in decades. The recession officially ended that June, yet by October roughly one person in ten in the labor force was looking for work. How could both statements be true? A factory can start filling more orders by giving its current workers longer shifts. Months may pass before it hires another person. When I chaired the president’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2011 to 2013, that distinction mattered. For the parent still sending out applications, the important date was the day a paycheck came in again.

One More Question, This Time About Music

Back at Princeton, I turned to a subject I loved enough to study even when it was loud. I played the drums, and I wanted to know why a handful of stars earned so much of the money people spent on concerts. That question became a book called Rockonomics. If you had joined my class, we might have started with the price on your concert ticket. How much went to the performer? How much did the drummer take home? By then you would have been doing the kind of economics that won me over at Cornell, and all you had to bring was a ticket stub.

How Was the Recovery Act Supposed to Create Jobs? - Told by Alan Krueger

Suppose you walked into school in September 2009 and found last year’s math teacher writing fractions on the board. You might notice a new haircut. You would have no reason to notice a federal spending law. Yet in Miami-Dade County, Florida, school officials estimated that federal aid would help them preserve nearly 2,000 teaching positions. I was an economist at the Treasury Department that year, and the word that interests me in that sentence is “preserve.” If a district hires a new teacher, you can find a new name on the payroll. What would you look for if the law worked and the name on the payroll stayed exactly the same? gao.gov

Follow a Dollar to the Chalkboard

On February 17, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The country was losing jobs, tax collections were falling, and states were drawing up budgets they could no longer afford. Follow one dollar intended for education. The federal government awarded money to Florida through the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund. Florida could use that money to restore support for public schools, distributing it to districts through the state’s school-funding formula. In a district budget, that dollar could cover part of a teacher’s pay. Then the teacher could take her paycheck to the grocery store, where her purchases helped pay somebody else’s wages. That second step was part of the economic reasoning behind the act, too. www.obamalibrary.gov

What a Time Sheet Can Tell You

By the end of 2009, federal officials had given districts a more straightforward way to report the work the money paid for. Add up the hours supported by the grant and divide by the hours in one full-time schedule. If the grant paid for half the working hours of two teachers over the same quarter, the district reported one full-time equivalent. Both teachers could still be standing in front of their classes all day. The number told us how much of their work the federal dollars financed. To find out whether either teacher would have lost her job, you would want another piece of evidence, such as the district’s proposed budget before the aid arrived. obamawhitehouse.archives.gov

The School Year We Never Got to See

Now suppose the school board had another choice. Without federal aid, it might have kept the math teacher and postponed replacing a leaky roof. The same federal dollar would appear on the teacher’s payroll, yet the person who gained work might have been a roofer across town. Multiply that puzzle by thousands of districts and businesses, and you can see why the Congressional Budget Office gave Congress a range of estimates. Its economists used actual spending, evidence from earlier policies, and models of how the economy responds. We could count the hours the money bought. To judge how many additional Americans had work because of it, we had to ask what those school boards, employers, and families would otherwise have done. That is a harder question than counting paychecks, and it is the one taxpayers deserved to have answered.

The Recession Ends, but Unemployment Keeps Rising - Told by Alan Krueger

Which month would you circle on a calendar to mark the end of the Great Recession? I was working as an economist at the U.S. Treasury in 2009, and I would have asked what you wanted that circle to tell us. June marked the low point of an eighteen-month decline in American economic activity. Yet unemployment stood at 9.5 percent that month and climbed to 10 percent in October. By then, roughly one in ten people in the labor force was out of work. If you were one of them, you had every reason to ask what, exactly, had ended in June. NBER

The First Order Back

Imagine a furniture maker whose customers have been ordering fewer tables each month. She has laid off two workers and shortened the hours of the people who remain. Then a store calls with a bigger order. She can give her crew another afternoon of work and use a saw that stood idle last week. By Friday, more tables have gone out the door, but neither of the two laid-off workers has been called back. For that to happen, the owner may need several more orders like this one. Now widen the picture. While one shop is shipping more tables, another can still be letting people go. Across the country, production can begin to grow while the number of people looking for work keeps rising. NBER

What We Learned by Asking Every Week

My colleague Andreas Mueller and I wanted to understand what those months were like for the people waiting for work. Beginning in the fall of 2009, we surveyed 6,025 unemployed workers in New Jersey, following participants week by week for as long as twenty-four weeks. We asked how they spent their time and how they felt during daily activities. People reported feeling particularly unhappy while searching for a job, and that feeling grew worse the longer they were unemployed. A monthly report could count someone as unemployed in both October and November. Our survey helped explain what a second month of filling out applications could cost that person, beyond another month’s lost pay. brookings.edu

When Could Anyone Know?

There’s one more date I’d put on that calendar. On September 20, 2010, the National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the recession had ended back in June 2009. Its economists had waited for enough evidence from employment, income, production, and sales to identify the turning point. Nobody opening a newspaper that June could have known the verdict. Looking back, we can mark when the economy began to climb and when unemployment reached its peak four months later. For the two people waiting to hear from the furniture shop, there was a third date worth circling. Each would know it without consulting an economist. It was the day somebody called and offered them work.

The GSA Conference Scandal: Watching Government Spending? - Told by Lewis

When someone pays federal taxes, that money becomes part of a public trust. Think of a nurse finishing a long shift or a shopkeeper balancing the books after closing. Their dollars help keep government operating, and they have a right to expect care in how those dollars are spent. In October 2010, approximately 300 employees attended the General Services Administration’s Western Regions Conference at a resort outside Las Vegas. The GSA helps manage federal buildings and purchases. Its employees were supposed to understand responsible buying. Yet the conference and its preparations cost $822,751, and investigators would find excessive spending and violations of purchasing rules.

Before the Conference Even Began

The expenses started well before attendees arrived. Employees made two scouting trips, held five off-site planning meetings, and conducted a rehearsal. Preparations alone cost more than $136,000. During the conference, catered food and beverages totaled roughly $146,500, including breakfasts costing $44 per person. Investigators also found that officials disclosed a competing bidder’s price to a favored contractor. That decision raises a question beyond the size of a meal bill. A business competing for public work should receive a fair opportunity. When an official gives one bidder another bidder’s price, the government undermines the competition meant to protect taxpayers.

Someone Asked for an Investigation

The first important step came from inside the agency. Deputy Administrator Susan Brita requested an investigation after the conference in late October 2010. The matter went to the GSA’s Office of Inspector General, which examines waste, misconduct, and failures within the agency. This is one reason those offices matter. Employees may see troubling conduct that citizens outside the building cannot see. Investigators can examine records, interview officials, and follow the decisions behind an expense. Inspector General Brian Miller briefed agency leadership in May 2011, and a final management report reached that leadership in February 2012. The spending had happened quickly. Establishing who approved it and how the safeguards failed took much longer.

The Report Reaches the Public

On April 2, 2012, the report became public and GSA Administrator Martha Johnson resigned. Congress held hearings, bringing agency officials and investigators before lawmakers to explain what had happened. A resignation could change the person at the top, but members of Congress still needed answers about the decisions below. Who approved the expenses? Who reviewed the contracts? What happened when someone suggested saving money? The inspector general found that suggestions to reduce costs had been ignored. Those findings gave Congress something concrete to examine when demanding changes.

Watching After the Headlines Fade

I believed government could help people secure opportunities and protect their rights. That belief carries a duty to examine government’s mistakes. The GSA accepted the inspector general’s recommendations and described steps to prevent further waste. Citizens could then ask whether those steps were actually followed. Employees, inspectors general, agency leaders, and Congress each had responsibilities in this case. The people paying the bills deserved more than an explanation after the money was gone. They deserved purchasing procedures, supervision, and leadership that would protect their trust before the next conference began.

My Name is Louise Slaughter: From a Kentucky Coal Town to the Floor of Congress

I was born Louise McIntosh in 1929 in Harlan County, Kentucky. My father was a blacksmith who worked for a coal company. When my sister died of pneumonia, I wanted to understand how an infection could take someone we loved. At the University of Kentucky, I studied microbiology, the science of living things too small to see with the naked eye. Then I earned a master’s degree in public health. Under a microscope I could study the organism that made one person sick. Public health posed a bigger question. What could we do to keep a whole town well?

The Woods That Got Me into Politics

My husband, Bob, and I raised three daughters in Fairport, New York. My start in politics had a good deal to do with a patch of beech and maple trees called Hart’s Woods. When development threatened the woods, I joined neighbors who wanted to save them. That will teach you something about government in a hurry. You can know every tree worth saving, but you had better also know who has the votes. I lost my first two races for the Monroe County Legislature and won the third. After serving in the New York State Assembly, I won election to Congress in 1986. Western New York sent me to Washington, Kentucky accent and all.

Who Gets to See Your Genetic Test?

In Congress, my science education came in handy. Suppose a blood test could tell you that you had inherited a higher risk of cancer. You might want that information so your doctor could watch for trouble early. But would you take the test if you thought the result might cost you your job or your health insurance? I introduced a bill to protect people facing that choice. Getting it through Congress took more than a decade. In 2008, President George W. Bush signed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. At last, employers and health insurers faced federal limits on what they could do with a piece of information you had carried since birth.

The Rules Behind the Healthcare Vote

In 2007, I became the first woman to chair the House Rules Committee. The name sounds dry until you have a bill you care about. Our committee helps decide how long the House can debate a bill and which changes members may offer. In March 2010, I helped bring the Affordable Care Act to the House floor. The vote was 219 to 212. Two days later, President Barack Obama signed it into law. I served western New York for the rest of my life. In my official committee portrait, you can find both a microscope and the House rule book. I had spent years learning to use each of them, and I wanted the next girl who looked at that painting to know she could, too.

The Vote That Decided Healthcare Reform - Told by Louise Slaughter

On Christmas Eve, 2009, the United States Senate passed its healthcare bill, 60 to 39. The House had passed a healthcare bill of its own in November. You might think President Barack Obama could have picked up his pen that afternoon. I chaired the House Rules Committee, and I could tell you what stood in his way. Both chambers had to approve exactly the same words. Our House bill offered people the choice of a government-run insurance plan alongside private plans. The Senate had left that choice out. If we wanted to put it back, the senators would have to vote again. In January, one election in Massachusetts made that a much bigger gamble.

What a Family Stood to Gain

Before we count senators, consider what a parent faced when buying insurance. An insurer could look at a child’s medical history and offer the family a policy that left out treatment for the very condition that worried them most. Even a family with coverage could reach a lifetime dollar limit during a long illness. Those of us who supported reform wanted to end those practices. For families priced out of insurance altogether, the Senate bill also provided for marketplaces where they could compare plans and for tax credits to help eligible households pay the premiums. Opponents objected to the cost and to requiring most Americans to obtain coverage. Those disagreements mattered to the people back home, and every member of the House would have to answer for a vote.

What One Senate Seat Changed

In January 2010, Massachusetts voters elected Republican Scott Brown to the seat the late Senator Ted Kennedy had held. Once Brown took office, the Democrats and their allies had 59 senators. It generally took 60 votes to end debate if opponents tried to block a bill. But the Senate’s Christmas Eve vote still stood. That left the House with a choice. We could insist on our version and risk losing the whole measure, or we could accept the Senate bill as written and vote separately on changes involving taxes and spending. Those changes could go through a process called budget reconciliation, which allowed the Senate to act by a simple majority. My committee brought both questions to the House floor.

Sunday Night, 10:49

On March 21, 2010, the House clerk recorded the decisive vote at 10:49 p.m. I voted yes. The final count was 219 in favor and 212 against. Every Republican who voted opposed the bill, joined by 34 Democrats. Two days later, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. The changes in the separate bill became law on March 30. For a family waiting to buy insurance, even those signatures left another date to watch. Some protections began in 2010, while the marketplaces and their tax credits would begin providing coverage in 2014. What we decided that Sunday night was whether those families could count on the protections written into law or would have to wait for another Congress to take up their case.

New Rules for Wall Street and Main Street - Told by Alan Krueger

A family buys a house and borrows money to pay for it. Every month, the family sends in a mortgage payment. Now for a question I might have asked when I worked at the Treasury Department in 2010. Who loses money if that payment never arrives? You might say the bank down the street. But the bank could sell the mortgage, and the loan could become part of a pool of mortgages. Investors could buy a share of the payments from that pool. The family would still owe money on the same house, yet some of the people counting on its payments might live a thousand miles away. To understand the Dodd–Frank Act, it helps to follow that one loan in both directions.

Who Could See the Danger?

One missed payment is serious for a family. Now suppose lenders across the country have made thousands of loans with low starting payments that can climb sharply later. Banks and investors may each believe they have spread their risk by buying pieces of many mortgages. But what happens if families across many towns start missing payments at the same time? On July 21, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. It created the Financial Stability Oversight Council, chaired by the treasury secretary. Banking, securities, insurance, and other officials could compare what each was seeing, identify dangers that crossed from one market into another, and recommend action. A bank examiner might know how much trouble one bank was in. The council had to ask who else would be in trouble if that bank failed.

Where Could the Family Turn?

Back at the kitchen table, the family might have a different problem. Suppose its bank records show that a mortgage payment cleared on time, but the company collecting the payments charges a late fee. Where could the borrowers take their complaint if the company kept insisting they owed it? Dodd–Frank created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In December 2011, the bureau began accepting mortgage complaints. Borrowers could describe what happened, and the bureau could send the complaint to the company for a response and track how it was handled. An error that had cost one family hours on the telephone would leave a record. If other borrowers reported the same problem, the bureau could look for a pattern.

Which Payment Had to Fit?

The law also changed what happened before a family signed. Under mortgage rules that took effect in 2014, lenders generally had to make a reasonable, good-faith judgment that the borrower could repay. They had to check information such as income and debts. For a loan with a low introductory rate, a lender could no longer qualify a family using that temporary rate alone. Put yourself at the kitchen table with the loan papers open. The first monthly payment fits your budget. The payment you may owe after the rate changes would leave you short on groceries. Which figure should the lender use to decide whether you can afford the house? After a crisis that began with millions of decisions at tables like that one, Congress had given that question the force of law.

My Name is Tom Coburn: An Oklahoma Doctor in the United States Senate

I was born in Casper, Wyoming, in 1948 and grew up in Muskogee, Oklahoma. I studied accounting at Oklahoma State and went to work for our family’s business making equipment for eye doctors. By the time I decided to go to medical school, my wife, Carolyn, and I had three daughters. I came home to Muskogee as a family doctor and delivered more than four thousand babies over the years. Later, when somebody in Washington talked about passing the national debt on to our grandchildren, I had a pretty good idea who was going to get the bill. I had held some of those children in my hands.

A Promise with an End Date

In 1994, I ran for the House of Representatives as a Republican. I told the people of eastern Oklahoma I would serve no more than three terms. They elected me three times, and in 2001 I went home. Four years later, I took my seat in the United States Senate. If senators wanted to pass a spending bill without debate, any one of us could object. I often did. That earned me the nickname “Dr. No.” I figured that if a project was worth somebody’s tax money, a senator ought to be willing to stand up, say what it cost, and explain who would benefit.

The Senator Across the Aisle

Barack Obama and I entered the Senate on the same day in 2005. He was a Democrat from Illinois, and you could have filled a book with our disagreements. But try answering a simple question we both cared about. If Washington awards a million-dollar contract, how does a taxpayer in Muskogee find out who got it? We helped write a law that put federal contracts and grants into a searchable public database. Later, I voted against President Obama’s healthcare law. I still counted him as a friend. In 2011, when a fight over federal borrowing threatened the government’s ability to pay its bills, I joined three Democrats and two other Republicans to work on a deficit plan. My own party had to hear things it didn’t like, too.

My Last Words to the Senate

I left the Senate in January 2015, two years before my term was up, while I was being treated for prostate cancer. In my farewell speech, I thanked people whose names seldom appeared on a ballot, including the researchers who dug through federal records so I could ask better questions. Then I had something personal to say. I still believed in the votes I had cast. I also knew how sharp my words could be. So I stood before the men and women who had worked beside me and told them, “Those of you through the years who I have offended, I truly apologize.”

The Tea Party and the Midterm Turnabout - Told by Tom Coburn

April 15 is usually a day for finishing your taxes. In 2009, Americans in cities across the country marked it by gathering at Tea Party rallies. Their name recalled the Boston Tea Party, but the bills on their minds were recent. Washington had committed public money to rescue financial institutions under President George W. Bush. President Barack Obama had just signed a large spending and tax-cut package to fight the recession. Supporters argued that federal action could keep businesses open and people working. As a Republican senator from Oklahoma, I wanted Congress to answer a question the protesters were asking. When we borrow money for a program, what could we show the people who would have to pay it back? That was a fair question to put to either party.

A Healthcare Fight Comes Home

By March 2010, the argument had reached into the doctor’s office. The Affordable Care Act promised help for families who struggled to buy insurance and new protection for people who already had an illness. It also required most Americans to obtain coverage or eventually pay a penalty. I practiced medicine in Muskogee. I knew what a doctor’s bill could mean to a family, and I opposed giving Washington that much authority over how people bought insurance. Tea Party organizers took that argument into the congressional campaigns. Although the movement borrowed its name from a party, it had no single national slate of its own. Its activists worked through rallies and Republican primaries, where they could challenge members of my own party before a Democrat ever appeared on the same ballot.

The Night the House Changed Hands

On November 2, 2010, Oklahoma voters returned me to the Senate. The result that changed my job most came from hundreds of House races across the country. Republicans gained 63 seats and took the House majority. The Tea Party had helped bring conservatives to the polls, but a senator ought to be careful about claiming to know why everyone voted. Nearly two out of three voters in the national exit poll picked the economy as their most important issue. A laid-off worker and a protester worried about the national debt could mark the same box for different reasons. Together, those ballots produced a divided government. Democrats kept the Senate, Obama remained president, and Republican John Boehner became speaker of the House in January.

What the Gavel Could Do

Within weeks, we had a test of what the election meant. On January 19, 2011, the House voted 245 to 189 to repeal the healthcare law. The Republican majority could keep a campaign promise and put every representative’s vote on the record. But repeal also needed Senate approval, and the votes weren’t there. The law stood. Now look at the same rule from President Obama’s side of Pennsylvania Avenue. For the next two years, he could win Senate support for a new bill and still see it stop in the House. Speaker Boehner could decline to bring it to a vote, or his members could vote it down. That was the power voters had handed Republicans in November. When the president wanted a bill and the House majority objected, somebody would have to change the bill, change some minds, or go home without a law.

IRS Targets the Tea Party: Who Gets Extra Scrutiny? - Told by Tom Coburn

Imagine organizing your neighbors to discuss government spending, choosing a name, and applying for federal tax-exempt status. Beginning in 2010, words such as “Tea Party,” “Patriots,” and “9/12” could send that application into a special IRS review process. Officials also used concerns about government debt and taxes as screening criteria. As a senator from Oklahoma, I believe citizens deserved an explanation for that treatment and waiting. The IRS had deliberately selected applications using names and policy positions. Once selected, many organizations encountered prolonged delays and additional questions. A government agency with authority over taxpayers had made the applicants’ political identities part of its screening system.

Months Became Years

Put the waiting times beside one another. The IRS’s fiscal 2012 processing goal for tax-exemption applications was 121 days. Its actual average for cases requiring substantial additional information was 238 days, about eight months. Those figures measure different things, and neither promised every applicant a quick decision. Yet the delays among applications selected for potential political activity extended much further. By December 17, 2012, investigators found that 160 of 296 reviewed applications remained open. Those unfinished cases had waited between 206 and 1,138 days—some for more than three years. The group of 296 included organizations beyond the Tea Party, but its records showed how an application could remain unresolved across two election cycles.

Thirteen Months Without Progress

The most troubling detail was what happened while applicants waited. Investigators found that no work was completed on the majority of these potentially political applications for thirteen months, from October 2010 through November 2011, while specialists awaited technical guidance. Some organizations subsequently received demands for information investigators judged unnecessary, including donor information. These decisions gave groups additional burdens while leaving their status unsettled. Many applicants sought recognition as 501(c)(4) social-welfare organizations, whose political-activity rules differed from those governing 501(c)(3) charities. Reviewing compliance was a legitimate responsibility. Choosing whom to burden through political labels was an abuse of that responsibility.

What the Investigations Established

The Treasury inspector general published these findings in May 2013, bringing conduct from 2010–2012 into national view. Investigators documented inappropriate screening, excessive delays, unnecessary questions, and ineffective management. Establishing those actions did not establish every accusation about the motives behind them. The Justice Department’s 2015 investigation found insufficient evidence of criminal misconduct to prosecute officials. In 2017, however, the government settled lawsuits and acknowledged wrongful treatment that disproportionately affected conservative groups. For students examining this record, accountability begins with precise questions. Who chose the screening rules? Who allowed applications to sit? Who corrected the failures? Citizens should be able to criticize government spending and still expect the agency reviewing their paperwork to apply the same lawful standards to everyone.

What Happens When Washington Hits Its Borrowing Limit? - Told by Tom Coburn

Suppose a contractor in Oklahoma finishes repairing a federal bridge. The government signed the contract, the crew did the work, and now the contractor sends Washington a bill. That is where I would begin explaining the debt-ceiling fight of 2011. Congress had already approved the spending. But federal tax collections were falling short of what the government owed, and the Treasury had to borrow to cover the difference. Federal law put a ceiling on how much debt Treasury could have outstanding. Raising that ceiling gave Treasury room to pay bills like the contractor’s. If Congress wanted to order another bridge repair, it still needed authority to spend the money.

The Day Washington Hit the Ceiling

On May 16, 2011, federal debt reached the legal limit of roughly $14.3 trillion. The contractor’s check could still go out that day. Tax money kept coming in, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner could buy time by temporarily suspending certain investments in federal retirement funds. But those steps bought weeks. Geithner warned Congress that by August 2 he expected to have exhausted that room. Then what? The government would still owe retirees their benefits, contractors their payments, and lenders their interest. If too many bills came due on the same day, Treasury could run short of cash. As an Oklahoma senator, I wanted Washington to borrow less. Letting an invoice sit unpaid would do nothing to reduce the price we had agreed to pay.

Why I Walked Out and Came Back

Three Republicans and three Democrats tried to put together a longer-term bargain. They called us the Gang of Six. In May, I stepped away because I thought our proposal did too little to slow the growth of federal healthcare spending. In July, I came back after the group included additional healthcare savings. My side had to give ground, too. I was willing to close special tax breaks even though that meant the Treasury would collect more revenue. On July 19, we presented a plan we estimated would shrink the next ten years’ deficits by about $3.7 trillion. The distinction mattered. We were proposing to reduce what Washington would need to borrow over a decade. The debt already on the books would still have to be paid.

The Vote I Cast

On August 2, a different bargain came before the Senate. The Budget Control Act allowed the debt ceiling to rise in stages, capped certain future spending, and created a bipartisan committee to seek further savings. I voted no. The Senate passed it, and President Obama signed it that day. Treasury could keep paying the nation’s bills, though Congress had left much of the argument over future spending for another day. Think back to that bridge crew in Oklahoma. The workers had earned their pay before a single senator cast a vote on the debt ceiling. The time for Congress to ask whether the country could afford the next bridge was when it decided to hire the crew.

Solyndra: When a Government-Backed Investment Fails - Told by Tom Coburn

In September 2009, the Department of Energy approved a $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, a solar manufacturer in Fremont, California. The money would help build a factory producing an unusual kind of solar panel made with cylindrical tubes. Supporters saw an opportunity to manufacture advanced technology in America and put people to work during a severe recession. As an Oklahoma senator, I wanted taxpayers to understand what Washington had promised. A loan guarantee commits the government to cover a borrower’s debt if the borrower cannot repay it. The factory belonged to a private company, but public money was exposed if its business plan failed.

The Market Changes the Calculation

Solyndra’s technology offered an advantage when the silicon used in competing panels was expensive. Then silicon prices fell, competing manufacturers increased production, and conventional solar panels became cheaper. Solyndra had to compete against those falling prices while paying its own manufacturing costs. Energy Department officials later told Congress that intense international competition and weaker European demand had damaged the company’s prospects. This is the difficulty with betting on a promising technology. Engineers can build something impressive while customers find another product that does the job for less money. A government guarantee cannot make those customers choose the more expensive option.

Another Chance, Then Bankruptcy

By late 2010, Solyndra faced serious financial trouble. The Energy Department agreed to restructure its financing in early 2011, arguing that keeping the company operating offered taxpayers a better chance of repayment than shutting it down immediately. That decision deserves examination. Continuing might save jobs and recover the loan, but it also meant maintaining the government’s exposure to a struggling business. The rescue failed. Solyndra stopped manufacturing, laid off approximately 1,100 employees, and filed for bankruptcy in September 2011. Workers lost their livelihoods, and taxpayers faced losses exceeding $500 million for a single company backed by politics. Congress now had to examine how a celebrated investment had reached that point so quickly.

What Investigators Found

The investigation continued long after the factory closed. In August 2015, the Energy Department’s inspector general reported that Solyndra had supplied inaccurate and misleading information during the application process and while receiving loan proceeds. Some information concerned customer agreements that offered less certainty about future sales than officials had understood. Investigators also found that the department missed opportunities to detect and resolve warning signs. Those findings added a serious oversight failure to the business failure. Anyone evaluating a loan needs reliable information about whether customers will actually buy the product. When taxpayers stand behind that loan, checking those claims becomes a public responsibility.

The Questions Before the Check

I would ask students to put themselves at the desk before the guarantee was approved. What happens if competing panels become cheaper? How firm are the customer commitments? Who independently checks the company’s forecasts? Government auditors had already called for improvements in the Energy Department’s loan-guarantee procedures in 2010. Solyndra gave those questions a cost measured in lost jobs and public dollars. Supporting innovation requires accepting uncertainty. Responsible oversight requires examining that uncertainty before making promises taxpayers must honor.

Fast and Furious:  Government Run Gun-Trafficking - Told by Tom Coburn

Now this is a case study of corruption and cover-ups. In late 2009, federal agents in Phoenix, Arizona, began investigating people suspected of buying firearms for a trafficking network supplying criminals in Mexico. These were suspected “straw purchasers”—people buying guns on behalf of someone else while claiming to be the actual buyer. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, known as ATF, wanted to build a case against the larger organization. But agents repeatedly allowed suspicious purchases to proceed without promptly seizing the weapons. Investigators later found that officials had pursued that strategy without adequately accounting for the danger to the public. As a physician and a senator, I would ask a basic question. What happens to the people who encounter those guns while the government waits?

Two Rifles at a Murder Scene

During the investigation, suspects purchased nearly 2,000 firearms. Hundreds were eventually recovered in the United States and Mexico. Then, in December 2010, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was fatally shot during an encounter with armed criminals in southern Arizona. Two rifles recovered at the scene were traced to a purchaser already identified in Operation Fast and Furious. Their presence connected the investigation to a deadly encounter, although recovering a weapon at a crime scene does not establish that it fired the fatal bullet. The discovery demanded answers. Federal authorities had known about the purchaser months before he bought those rifles, yet the operation had continued without arrests or indictments.

A Letter Washington Had to Withdraw

ATF whistleblowers helped bring concerns to Congress, where Senator Chuck Grassley pressed the Justice Department for answers. On February 4, 2011, the department sent a letter denying that ATF knowingly allowed illegally purchased weapons to reach Mexico. That assurance proved inaccurate. Attorney General Eric Holder requested an inspector general investigation later that month. On December 2, the department withdrew its February letter. Consider the significance of that reversal. Congress had asked whether a federal agency allowed dangerous conduct, and the first official answer could not withstand examination. Investigators now needed to establish both what happened in Arizona and how incorrect information reached lawmakers.

The Fight Over the Records

The dispute intensified over documents explaining the department’s response to Congress. President Obama asserted executive privilege over certain internal records, while the House Oversight Committee insisted it needed them to complete its investigation. On June 28, 2012, the House voted 255 to 67 to hold Holder in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with its subpoena. That vote concerned access to records. It did not establish that Holder had personally directed the gun-trafficking operation. For students, this confrontation raises a practical constitutional question. How can Congress oversee an executive agency when the two branches disagree about which records lawmakers may examine?

What Accountability Required

In September 2012, the inspector general reported serious failures in judgment and supervision and referred fourteen officials for possible disciplinary consideration. The investigation found no evidence that Holder knew about the operation’s problematic tactics before early 2011. Responsibility nevertheless extended across agents, prosecutors, and supervisors who failed to intervene appropriately. A public official’s duty includes asking what could go wrong before a strategy is approved—and stopping it when the danger becomes clear. By the time congressional hearings began, guns had disappeared into criminal networks. Accountability required finding out who could have stopped that from happening and why they failed to act.

Were Americans Better Off? - Told by Alan Krueger and Tom Coburn

Alan Krueger: Tom, at 8:30 on Friday morning, November 2, the Labor Department released the last jobs report Americans would see before they voted. I was chairing President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, and the first figure I’d have shown a voter was 171,000. That was the estimated number of jobs employers had added in October, after subtracting the ones that disappeared. Stores were adding people to their payrolls. So were employers in health care. Campaigning in Ohio that day, Obama pointed to hiring as evidence that the recovery was reaching workplaces where, a few years earlier, the news had been layoffs.

Tom Coburn: Alan, I’d have asked that voter to keep the report open. About 12.3 million Americans were unemployed. Five million of them had been out of work for at least 27 weeks. Think what that means on a calendar. Someone who started looking before Memorial Day could still be filling out applications after Halloween. Mitt Romney’s argument was that Americans should expect a faster recovery and that his experience in business and as governor of Massachusetts equipped him to deliver one. A voter could welcome those 171,000 jobs and still want to hear what Romney would do for the people waiting.

How Could Both Numbers Go Up?

Alan Krueger: Here’s a puzzle for you, Tom. Employers added jobs, yet the unemployment rate edged from 7.8 percent in September to 7.9 percent in October. How could both things happen? The government asked employers how many jobs were on their payrolls. In a separate survey, it asked people in households whether they were working or looking for work. Suppose a mother who had stopped searching heard that a store was hiring and put in an application. By looking again, she joined the labor force. Until she found work, she also counted as unemployed. That October, the household survey found that both employment and the number of people in the labor force had grown.

Tom Coburn: And that mother gives us a fair test of both campaigns. If the store had started hiring again, the president could point to a real improvement. If she had spent six months looking and still couldn’t get an interview, Governor Romney had grounds to question the pace. What I’d press him on is the next step. Which of his proposals would make it worthwhile for that storekeeper to hire one more person? I’d press the president just as hard. What reason did that mother have to believe another four years would improve her chances?

What Could a Voter Conclude?

Alan Krueger: I’d start with the trend. One month can be noisy. But unemployment had reached 10 percent in October 2009. By October 2012 it was 7.9 percent, and employers were adding jobs. Those facts supported Obama’s argument that the country had gained ground. They couldn’t tell us exactly how much credit any president deserved.

Tom Coburn: Then here’s what I’d ask a student holding that Friday report. Underline the figure that would matter most to someone deciding whether to send out a first application. Now underline the one that would matter most to someone sending out a fiftieth. On November 6, both of those people had a vote. They could read every number correctly and still part company over whether the recovery was good enough to earn the president a second term.

Can Congress Require Americans to Carry Insurance? - By Slaughter and Coburn

Louise Slaughter: Tom, suppose a woman who buys her own insurance learns she has diabetes. Before the Affordable Care Act, an insurer could turn her away because of that diagnosis. We wrote the law so that, beginning in 2014, she could buy coverage even after she got sick. But that raised a problem. If healthy people could wait until they needed expensive treatment before signing up, who would help pay the bills in the meantime? Insurance works because people pay into a common fund while many of them are well. That is why our law called on most Americans to carry coverage and set a payment for those who went without it.

Tom Coburn: Louise, I practiced medicine in Oklahoma. I understand why a patient with diabetes needs insurance. Now consider her healthy neighbor who has decided to pay his own medical bills. The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate commerce among the states. If that man buys a policy, Congress can regulate the transaction. But what transaction has he made by staying home and buying nothing? If his decision to sit out gives Congress the power to order him into the market, where does that power end? That was the objection the justices had to answer.

Why the Payment Survived

Louise Slaughter: On June 28, 2012, Chief Justice John Roberts supplied the fifth vote to uphold the payment. What mattered to him was what would happen to your neighbor. If the man owed the payment because he decided not to get insurnace, he would have to send it to the IRS with his federal taxes. The amount depended partly on his income and would generally cost slightly less than insurance. He faced no criminal prosecution for going uninsured. Congress had called the payment a penalty, but those details persuaded five justices that it could constitutionally operate as a tax. Your neighbor could pay it and lawfully remain uninsured.

Tom Coburn: And that last sentence tells us how the law survived even though my objection carried weight. Roberts and four other justices agreed that the power to regulate commerce did not let Congress compel someone to buy insurance. A different group of five, including Roberts, agreed that Congress could tax the decision to go without it. So, if a student asks whether Washington won this case, I’d ask which power we’re talking about. The distinction made all the difference to the man holding the tax bill.

Could a State Say No?

Louise Slaughter: Now take the case of a low-income adult whose state Medicaid program did not cover her. Medicaid was already a partnership. Washington supplied part of the money, and states ran their programs under federal rules. We offered states new federal funds to cover more adults like her. What troubled the Court was what a state stood to lose if it declined. Under the law as written, Washington could withhold the federal funding the state already depended on to care for people enrolled under the old rules.

Tom Coburn: Think what that meant for a governor. Turning down money for a new program was one decision. Risking the money already paying for children’s doctor visits and nursing home care was quite another. The Court ruled that threatening the existing funds put too much pressure on the states. Congress could still offer the expansion money. A state could accept it and cover that woman, or decline it and keep its existing federal Medicaid funds. For her, one of the most important consequences of a ruling handed down in Washington was that the next decision would be made in her own state capital.

Voters Return Obama and a Divided Congress - Told by Lewis and Coburn

John Lewis: Tom, on November 6, 2012, Americans returned Barack Obama to the White House. He defeated Mitt Romney with 332 electoral votes to 206 and won just over half the popular vote. For someone who had marched for voting rights in Alabama, watching Americans elect their first Black president twice carried extraordinary meaning. But a presidential election shares the ballot with other contests. That same evening, voters chose representatives and senators who would help determine whether the president’s next proposals ever became law. Winning another four years meant returning to a Capitol where he would still have to persuade people.

Tom Coburn: And some of those people had just won elections by opposing him, John. Republicans emerged with 234 House seats to the Democrats’ 201. Democrats held 53 Senate seats, with two independents who would caucus with them, while Republicans held 45. Remember how those votes were collected. Representatives ran in individual districts, senators ran statewide, and only about a third of Senate seats faced election. We cannot assume every voter deliberately chose divided government. But the separate contests produced it, and each successful candidate could point to constituents who expected their promises to matter.

What Four More Years Allowed

John Lewis: Consider healthcare. Romney had promised repeal, while President Obama intended to carry out the Affordable Care Act. Reelection kept the administration responsible for implementing that law in place as the insurance marketplaces approached their planned opening. The president could direct executive agencies within the authority Congress had granted them. He could also veto legislation seeking repeal. Overriding that veto would require two-thirds of each chamber. So the presidential result had real consequences for a family waiting for insurance protections, even with Republicans holding the House.

Tom Coburn: Yet if the president wanted a new tax law or a new spending program, he still needed Congress. The House majority could reject a proposal, demand changes, or keep it from reaching a final vote. Even a Senate majority could encounter procedural obstacles. As 2012 ended, we faced a practical test. Tax increases and spending cuts were scheduled to take effect, creating what people called the fiscal cliff. On January 1, 2013, the outgoing Senate passed a tax compromise, 89 to 8. I voted yes. The House approved it later that day, 257 to 167, with support from both parties. An agreement could pass, but somebody had to assemble the votes in each chamber.

What Had the Ballot Authorized?

John Lewis: That is where I would ask students to pause, Tom. The voters had entrusted Obama with the presidency again, and they had entrusted congressional seats to people with competing convictions. A president could administer existing laws, propose legislation, negotiate, and use his veto. Changing federal taxes or approving new spending still required action on Capitol Hill. Look at one campaign promise and follow it through those responsibilities. What had voters given the president the power to do himself? What still required cooperation across party lines? The election answered who would hold office. The next votes in Congress would show what those officeholders could accomplish together.