Fareed Zakaria of CNN has recently stated in his talk show GPS that the US faces a fiscal cliff that only compromise and functional democracy can overcome. Whoever becomes president next January, the largest thing on their mind will be how to reduce the deficit. If action is not taken soon, automatic tax increases and spending cuts will go into effect which could cripple the economy and cause renewed unemployment. The Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan mentioned by Fareed was a bipartisan attempt encouraged by Obama in 2010 to reform taxes, health care, social security, and other programs. The plan promises to tackle the debt crisis, but the plan did not get through the committee with a super majority vote. Fareed argues that our problems are actually highly solvable as the Simpson-Bowles plan shows, but problem solving is severely limited by dysfunctional democracy, polarization, and abuse of rules such as the filibuster.
This all ties into the election because each candidate argues that they have the ability to force compromise in Congress. Obama stresses that he is willing to bring Republicans to the bargaining table while Romney says that Republicans will only compromise if one of their own kind is leading them.
Ultimately, Fareed's message is clear: we need real compromise within the government to save us from an impending debt crisis which, he argues, is realistically curable. Watch his video and tell me what you think. Is it really possible for us to put away our differences to solve our biggest problems, or are we too dysfunctional for compromise?
6 comments:
I feel that neither party wants to give up "power" in order for the other party to benefit. That being said, the only way that successful compromise between the Democratic and Republican Party to work is if both parties are willing to give up something. Since neither party isn't willing to budge, I find it very unlikely that the Democrats and the Republicans will compromise and most likely, they will not reach an agreement.
Due to the exigency of solving this crisis, I do think that Democrats and Republicans will accept that they will have to construct a middle ground between their two polarized ideologies. It is clear that Zakaria finds the Republican Party misguided, saying that the Republican Party "could accept reality and mathematics and recognize that tax revenues will have to go up," implying that, as of now, they are visibly ignoring an obvious truth, only "quietly admit[ting] that the Republican Party will have to accept higher taxes." Perhaps the Republicans only admit this "quietly" and remains vocal in not increasing taxes to promote a consistent image/ideology. But once either Obama or Romney takes office, I think the Republicans may concede to some kind of tax hike for the wealthy that the Democrats are proposing. I hope that both parties realize that they need to make possible sacrifices to reach an agreement in order to expeditiously address this serious issue.
Zakaria poses an interesting question (particularly on the eve of Election Day)—who would be "better" at helping to ease a compromise in Congress? While I tentatively agree with Zakaria that Romney may propose more moderate policy than he is "loudly" willing to admit, I remain concerned by Romney's general lack of consistency. However, I do think it is possible that a Romney presidency may facilitate more compromise in Congress than a second term for Obama simply because of the far right Republican stubbornness that Zakaria discussed. While I agree with Zakaria that forging economic compromise is absolutely essential, I still would not cast my vote (if I could...) based on political considerations alone over basic policy allegiance. Part of my reasoning for this stems from this Sullivan post that presents another consideration when attempting to predict how compromise in Congress may function. The president may influence Congress, but politics is a two way street...
In response to Anthony's question, party efforts to impede the wishes of the other party, when it means obstructing the path to a solution that will benefit the entire country, are childish and despicable. Staying true to and fighting for the beliefs of one's party is expected of politicians, but, these days, this loyalty has gone too far. The number one goal of these politicians should be to save the country from a fiscal cliff and not to throw common sense and compromise out of the window in order to giggle behind the back of the other party. Filibustering, to which Zakaria refers in his analysis, is one of the examples of this type of immaturity. This NY Times article says, "Many historians and congressional scholars respond that the filibuster is a valuable check against the passage of ill-considered legislation." While there may be certain cases in which this point is valid, it is likely that most filibustering efforts are stubborn, immature ways in which one party attempts to bully the other.
First of all, I think it's safe to say that the currently proposed solutions to our economic crisis would be markedly different (and possibly altogether unnecessary) had the Simpson-Bowles Act actually passed. That being said, both Romney's and Obama's economic plans bear some resemblance to Simpson-Bowles as this Washington Post article explains. Although I would definitely vote for Obama if I had the chance, I believe that both Obama and Romney are fully capable of solving this economic crisis. However, given the extremely uncompromising Republican majority in the House of Representatives that looks like it’s here to stay, Romney night have an easier time passing any kind of meaningful reform. Unfortunately, for the time being it appears that anything as extreme as Simpson-Bowles is unlikely to pass even though such an extreme measure may well be what our economy needs.
Please excuse the technological mishap. Here is a link to the post to which I was referring.
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