A Pyrrhic victory over a looming war

The recent battle, impasse, and last-minute compromise over the federal budget illustrates the continued hyper-partisanship occurring on Capitol Hill.  

The same old political wrangling between Republicans and Democrats was on display that asked the question of what to cut in a midst of a government shutdown.

While the American electorate continues to stand along the sidelines frustrated at Congress and over the political process, it can blame itself for causing the problem since it voted in a divided Congress during last year’s midterm elections.  Whether or not this is what was expected is really a moot point since this is the very nature of divided government: more conflict and not less of it as the political parties attempt to exert power over the other.

Inevitably, compromise occurs, albeit last minute. The Republicans and the president finally compromised cutting $38 billion in spending from the federal budget.  While this may seem significant at first, in reality, it’s not.  If one were to take that amount and compare it with just the federal budget’s discretionary spending, it only amounts to 1%. That’s a pittance if we compare it with the entire federal budget that accounts over $4 trillion.   

While Speaker Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell tout this as a major victory for Republicans, it really was a pyrrhic victory.

The real battle begins as the president and Congress considers how to tackle the long term problems of ballooning structural deficits that continue to increase our national debt.  How do we curb the cost of entitlements - our unfunded promises and liabilities - like Social Security and Medicare?  Compound that with our national debt that has soared to $14.3 trillion (approximately $70,000 per person) and we have a perfect storm that is forcing Congress to face the difficult, yet inevitable task of raising the debt ceiling so the country does not default on its loans.

While the reality of the debt is grim, politically, the Republicans and Tea Party freshmen have no choice but to go along with the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling since the repercussions of the U.S. defaulting on its loans would mean another catastrophic, debilitating economic crisis at home and abroad.  

The battle to balance this year’s budget may have just ended, but the war to tackle the national debt has just begun.

The Political Genius of Barack Obama

In a bold move of political maneuvering, the Obama Administration decisively convinced a few Republicans that politics needed to be set aside in order to get things done, which called for political expediency.

By the end of 111^th Congress’ impressive lame-duck session, an array of vital legislation moved swiftly through the often protracted legislative process that included extending the Bush tax cuts, the ratification of the START Treaty, the repeal of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell”, $4.2 billion bill to provide health care for 9/11 first responders, a sweeping food safety bill, 19 federal judges confirmed to the bench and enough money to fund the federal government through March.

One wonders if the White House had this game plan all along, resorting to “Plan B” after the “shellacking” the Democrats suffered during the midterm elections or was it an impromptu maneuver of an entrenched president.  This author credits the lame-duck victory to the president himself.  In an audacious and unexpected move, the president ventured on his own accord and conspired with Republicans to broker the extension of the Bush tax-cuts as a trade-off to extend unemployment insurance.  This, of course (what’s past is now prologue) infuriated Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats in an interesting twist when the majority party openly defies their own party leader.  But some way, somehow, the White House brilliantly orchestrated behind the scenes political-arm twisting that would make former presidents Truman and LBJ proud.  Recall that after the deal involving tax cuts was brokered, headlines battered the president’s lack of leadership: “Obama can’t lead”, “Concessions swindled by the Republicans”, “capitulated”, unable to muster “the power of the bully-pulpit”, Obama as “a one-term president”.

How did the administration in the course of two-and-half weeks managed to turn it around?  Was it the political calculus of moving towards the middle?  Was it convincing his party, particularly defeated Democrats, of the necessity of statesmanship over politics—the politics of nothing to lose?  Was it also the convincing of moderate Republicans like Sen. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown of the negative implications to political posturing?  Whatever President Obama did to persuade members of Congress from both sides of the aisle and allow them to see eye-to-eye clearly worked.  This week’s events were testaments of his political genius.  Mr. Obama was able to not only persuade both parties of the need to work together but to also convince himself of the necessity to do what the American people expected and demanded for him to do.  Mr. Obama clearly understands the situation, "If there's any lesson to draw from these past few weeks, it's that we are not doomed to endless gridlock," the president said. "We've shown, in the wake of the November elections, that we have the capacity not only to make progress, but to make progress together."

Not since Clinton did an American president heed former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli’s words of wisdom, “There are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests.” Obama chose to compromise risking alienating his own party.  He traded-off tax cuts for the wealthy to extend unemployment insurance.  As a result, Obama was hammered from the left and right and by the press for giving in, but in the end, opened the dialogue necessary that allowed him to push other pieces of legislation he considered of importance.  The strategy of attempting to take the high road provided the edge he needed over the Republicans and it paid off dividends.

Is this a sign of what to expect in the 112^th Congress?  If it is, Mr. Obama has to continue this political strategy as he moves towards the center. In fact, Mr. Obama needs to be more politically savvy considering newly-elected Tea Party members like Tennessee Sen. Rand Paul and Florida’s Sen. Marco Rubio are poised to make it difficult to move his legislative agenda along the process.  On the other hand, this may play positively to the president’s re-election bid in 2012.  Mr. Obama can, in fact, scapegoat Republicans if they play the role of obstructionists.  Nothing infuriates the American electorate more than gridlock and if the Republicans don’t help the president in moving legislation deemed important by the people, we may see a repeat of the Clinton playbook that helped propel him to a second term in 1996.  This is the political consequence of shared-government.

The question is who will out-maneuver who?  When does Obama push, when do Republicans dig their heels, when do both relent and compromise?  One thing is for sure as we begin a new Congress, bipartisanship will always find the undercurrent of partisan politics lurking below.  The question is who will have the political winds behind them as they approach 2012? 

It's time to get things done

The trouble with Washington has always been the inability for the two major political parties to compromise. Many political pundits point out that “getting things done” in Washington during an election year is near to impossible. This is good news since this means there is still a slim chance that things will get done. The reason why compromise is hard to achieve is that members of Congress whose seats are at risk are deathly afraid to make the hard decisions on issues that would likely endanger their re-election campaign. My message to Congress is the same the president posited during his State of the Union address. Rather than being complacent, it's time to move forward - it's time to lead.

It's clear from recent public opinion polls that both the president and Congress suffered decreased favorability ratings due to constant partisan gridlock. In turn, this has alienated independent voters and moderates from both political parties and is giving rise to the Tea Party activists’ message of fiscal conservatism and small government. This movement’s message is resonating with middle-of the-road-Americans as it attempts to gain traction by co-opting the general public sentiment of discontent by making it their own. This should be a major concern to the two major political parties since many of these activists declared they are willing to target both Republicans and Democrats this upcoming election. In fact, the group continues to funnel money in key congressional races in Texas, Nevada, and Florida. Perhaps the most significant political victory thus far was in Massachusetts where Tea Party activists claimed that their support propelled now Republican Jr. Senator Scott Brown from Massachusetts to the Senate. It is also apparent that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is wary about this group's political power influencing his already tough re-election bid to win back his seat in the state of Nevada.

This is the reason why both Democrats and Republicans must work together between now and November’s election if they are to turn the tide of the growing discontent over gridlock in Washington. They must put aside political agendas and pass salient legislation that will have an immediate impact on improving the economy and provide relief for Main Street. For Democrats this means passing sweeping health care reform and not just a watered down version of it. For Republican incumbents, it means setting aside politics by finding common ground on issues with Democrats that will directly help the American people.

Political jockeying from both parties must end or both will likely suffer the same political demise in November. President Obama understands this point and the prevailing political winds that accompany it. Probably thankful that he’s not up for re-election this year, Obama knows his party will take a hit in November. This is because of the slow pace of the improving economy and congressional Democrats’ inability to push through health care reform in a timely fashion. The question is not whether the Democrats will lose seats – they will – but rather whether the Democrats will retain their majority in the 112th Congress. This explains the president's urgency to bring bipartisanship back to the forefront. Obama’s recent attempts to meet and curry favor with the Republicans served as a pragmatic gesture to move the political process along. On the other hand, the Republicans also have much to lose if they are seen by voters as obstructionists and are unwilling to cooperate with the administration just to win back political power in Congress.

In the end, the American electorate will vote for members who get things done and vote out those who didn’t and remained complacent. It’s time for members of Congress to understand that being complacent also means being complicit and there is a political price to pay when one does nothing. The American people are tired of political wrangling. It's time for Congress to put the people first before the politics. If they don't, they might as well start cleaning out their desks for the next person who will occupy it.