The Best-Kept Secret in Washington

By Kevin R. Kosar and John Guida

Mr. Kosar is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Guida is an editor in Times Opinion.

These days, Congress, which hosted President Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, is often seen as the third wheel of the federal government, forever overshadowed by the presidency and Supreme Court, with a truly dismal approval rating.

But Kevin R. Kosar, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, thinks Americans might have gone a little too far in their Congress bashing. Congress — or at least the “secret Congress,” as he calls it — is not nearly as gridlocked or incompetent as its reputation suggests. The “toxic Congress,” on the other hand …

In a written conversation with John Guida, an editor in Times Opinion, Mr. Kosar explained the two faces of Congress — and the challenges the legislative branch faces in the Trump era.

John Guida: You recently called Congress “both deeply dysfunctional and surprisingly functional.” While it frequently fails even to pass a budget on time, it also does plenty of “valuable things that are nearly invisible to Americans,” like raising the compensation and benefits for veterans last year to keep up with inflation.

At the heart of your qualified defense of Congress is what you call the “secret Congress.” What is that?

Kevin R. Kosar: The secret Congress is the Congress that operates mostly in plain sight but that the average American simply does not see. This is not because our legislators are spending time squirreled away in a secret, plush room in the Capitol with leather chairs and covertly governing the country. (Although they do have some private rooms where they haggle.)

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