fiscal cliff

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Governing for the People

The House of Representatives took the high road on the first day of 2013 by approving the fiscal package passed to them by the Senate earlier that day. 85 Republicans crossed the aisle to vote with 172 Democrats for a progressive tax bill that would distribute the burden of paying for government more judiciously.  This was the first sign that the House would govern for of all the people, not just the most powerful, in their deliberations over the federal budget and the deficit in the next session.

Although the 167 who voted against the bill will claim they voted according to their fiscal principles, there is another principle, that of good faith negotiations, that they would have to ignore to vote “nay” on this bill.  Almost exactly a year ago the President extended the Bush tax cuts as a concession to keep government running, but declared that the taxes on the wealthy would have to be addressed when this bill came due again.  This principle was the cornerstone of the Obama Presidential campaign and resulted in a strong mandate in the President’s re-election.

When the election was over, Speaker John Boehner said the President would have to initiate tax legislation. When the President did so, the Speaker spurned the proposal. When the House failed to bring a tax bill to the floor, the Speaker declared it was in the Senate’s hands.  When the Senate sweated to produce a consensus bill, the House conservatives again spurned the bill.  Yet some Republicans seized the opportunity to show good faith, to compromise, notably Speaker Boehner and Budget Chairman Paul Ryan.  Clearly these men had to place governing above their budgetary scruples to vote this way.

Meanwhile the pattern of “my way or the highway” has been established in the past year by a stubborn minority in the House. We now know who these 157 representatives are, and some are Democrats.  Concessions made by their own colleagues in the Senate would not placate these “principled” representatives.  They have abandoned their responsibility to govern by standing on their principles.   Let them stand and prove their mettle, but let the majority move forward and govern for the people.

That agonized ripping sound is the shredding of alliances that have prevented Congress from acting productively for two years.  Whether these alliances are dead remains to be seen in the 113th Congress, but their dominion over the House of Representatives has momentarily weakened.  While ideology may continue to polarize the House, the spirit of collaboration, may yet transform this dysfunctional body.  Every bi-partisan consensus brings new hope that governing for all the people is still the highest principle in Washington.

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Over the Bluff

When President Obama shelved the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles Commission, he made the biggest mistake of his first term.

He had commissioned this bi-partisan group to solve the problem of the federal deficit and assigned two statesmen of a bygone era, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, to chair it. They proposed a blend of cuts and revenue increases, which would have been the last reasonable suggestion for balancing the budget Congress considered in the present administration.

Why did the President back away their proposals? Perhaps the cuts were too severe for liberal Democrats or endangered the implementation of the Affordable Health Care Act. Regardless, they represented the last true compromise, the last stab at a “Grand Bargain,” which could have separated the sheep from the goats in Congress.

Now both the sheep and the goats are headed toward the “fiscal cliff,” the automatic expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the draconian budget cuts scheduled for 2013. Writing in the New York Times on Sunday, Bill Keller suggested that the President should dare the squabbling herd to stampede off the fiscal cliff and let the consequences be damned. Apparently Erskine Bowles, co-framer of the last Grand Bargain, has recommended this course to press Congress to action.

This sounds like the right tactic for a Congress so tied up in its principles that it can’t move north, south, east or west.  Call their bluff and see if they’ll let their financial principles carry them over the fiscal bluff.  I’d buy a ticket to that show.

An even better show would be to make the Grand Bargain a campaign issue.  Make the candidates show their hands and threaten to take Congress to the brink. No more finger wagging about what should happen with the federal budget, but honest proposals about what could happen if Congress took its job seriously.

Put the Erskine-Bowles Commission’s recommendations on the table, as a symbol of compromise, and let the candidates explain their resistance. This is President Obama’s final chance to show economic leadership with a recalcitrant Congress.  Dare those posers to do nothing, to say nothing. Make this presidential campaign about the virtues of compromise and action, instead of posturing and resistance.

Tell Congress to get over the bluffing or head over the bluff with banners held high.