Political writers and community activists complain that there is no more compromise in Washington. CBS Face the Nation news anchor Bob Scheiffer lamented in one episode the need for bipartisanship to return to the Washington. Citing the appropriations for Homeland Security funding shortly after 9-11, Scheiffer remarked that such compromise and camaraderie is great missed in our nation's capital.
What defines the current gridlock in Congress?
One side refuses to give on raising taxes or other forms of revenue, while another side refuses to discuss meaningful cuts, or include meaningful entitlement reforms. Whereas in decades past Republicans focused on foreign policy, even at the expense of fiscal restraint, today the GOP's isolationist impulse has resurged, and Democratic lawmakers have announced their willingness to consider international interventions once again.
Now, let's take a longer look at "compromise" in Washington, and why today voters may not want such deal-making to return.
For decades, Democrats and Republicans, prodded by special interests, well-connected activists, and political party leaders, have agreed to spend money, other people's money. One lawmaker from Wisconsin, who handed out broken bells as booby-prizes to pork-laden legislators, also earmarked millions of dollars to the dairy industry in the Dairy State.
The few voices in Washington who have criticized both parties have face marginalization or ostracization. US Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) attempted to filibuster the spending bill of former (and now deceased) US Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK). Coburn lost that battle, and this year US Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) filibustered for twenty-two hours with little support from his Republican colleagues.
And the Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) appropriated three billion dollars for a dam reconstruction in his state. Washington politicians' adept and uncanny capacity to earmark funding has frustrated constituents
This outrage has only grown heated with those lawmakers who have said "There ought to be a law!" to stop the spending, yet they spend along with the same cohorts who agree with big government and lavish spending.
The national debt has soared in the last decade, the fault of Republicans as well as Democrats. The difference lies, however, in that Republicans have campaigned on bringing down the debt, ending the unending spending, and bringing the nation's fiscal house in order. They failed over the twelve years when they were in power in both chambers of Congress, from 1995-2007.
Compromise, in the words of US Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, had become: "One side wants to spend $100 billion that this country does not have, while the other side has sought $50 billion. The two sides then compromise on $75 billion which this nation does not have."
That is not compromise. That is collusion. That is conspiracy, and with the hard-earned cash of "We the People."
Come 2010, and TEA party backed candidates (almost all Republicans) drove out two cycles worth of Democratic gains in the House of Representatives, while denting the Democratic majority in the U Senate. For the first time in years, the President had to negotiate and authorize substantial cuts. President Reagan cut taxes, but not the spending. He even broke a promise not to raise the gas tax. Bush I reneged on a "No New Tax Pledge" and his son Bush II cut taxes with substantial deficit spending to follow, burning up a hard-fought surplus from a previous Republican Congress facing a more pragmatic Democratic President.
From the debt ceiling to the Super Committee to the fiscal cliff, to the sequester, President Obama's aggressively progressive spending/expanding agenda has now run against a stalwart, stubborn Congress which will not stand by or stand for deficit spending and unsustainable debt.
These "TEA Party radicals" or "hostage takers" are merely refusing to get along and go along with decades of "Potomac two-step" two-timing of the American taxpayer. Cuts to public entities like NPR or PBS, means testing for entitlements (including a now-defunct Coburn-Lieberman Amendment)
Indeed, the Republican Party failed to capture the White House or secure the US Senate in 2012. The reason? More fiscally-minded than ever, conservatives (and concerned Americans in general) saw the blue print for Obamacare running against Obama; a blue-blood moderate who wanted to redefine time tables for withdrawal from Afghanistan, a tax haven maven who would close loopholes to offset tax cuts, yet refused to name which loopholes or cuts. Romney lost because conservatives did not vote. Voters were looking for a leader of an uncompromising character, not a compromised candidate.
Obama's reelection brokered the fiscal cliff, which was not a loss, since the President signed the Bush II taxes cuts into perpetuity for 99.9% of Americans. So much for subsidizing a welfare state on working Americans.
The new conservative voice in Washington frustrates elitist attempts to spend, grow, waste, and throw money at every problem. This new "wont' go along" attitude enrages everyone, even Republicans.
However, "getting things done" in Washington had entailed deficit spending, an enlarged welfare state, and a growing national debt. Such compromising had to go in order not to compromise our nation's fiscal future.
Compromise as we know it is dead in the US government, and not a moment too soon.