The Obama Jobs Plan: Last Stop for Compromise

I must say that I was intrigued by the strategy behind the jobs plan that the President unveiled in his speech last night. I can’t exactly say that I was inspired or impressed, though. I don’t think it’s the strategy that I’d have liked to see, but it is a strategy, and a proactive one, and that’s saying something. I listened to the speech on NPR, and the broadcasters who covered it seemed to have a fair sense of what was coming before the President took the podium. There was some alternative speculation about how the bill would be structured, but the dominant theory seemed to be that it would consist entirely of initiatives that had been supported by both Democrats and Republicans in the past. That turned out to be exactly the case, the strategy being to present something that could not possibly meet with partisan opposition unless the Republican Party was prepared to explain why it had changed its view on a series of positions it had formerly supported.

It’s a clever approach, and it may succeed in its goal, but there are two serious questions in my mind: is that goal ambitious enough, and what if it doesn’t succeed? I admire the effort and sacrifice that must have gone into identifying and advancing all of the points of demonstrated overlap between Republican and Democratic policies on jobs and the economy. But as far as I’m concerned, the main reason why there is so little progress in American politics today is that the Republican Party has an uncompromising political will while the Democrats have an obsession with compromise at the expense of any will whatsoever.

I value compromise myself. I’m not so naïve and egotistical that I think I think government policy and the future of America can be built according to my own narrow vision. I am a firm believer in incremental change, and I know that the very process of positive change sometimes requires a great deal of patience and a lot of frustration. Yet, in a situation where the most regressive elements of public policy provide an unmovable defense against even the most modest applications of liberal ideas, I don’t want more compromise. I want a stronger offense. I want a reason to believe that liberal ideas aren’t dying because all political resources are being directed to efforts at obtaining cooperation with people who see any Congressional action whatsoever as an unacceptable political defeat.

It seems to me that that is what the president and much of the Democratic Party have been doing. I fear that they are losing sight of the dividing line between compromise and capitulation. In fact, I think both parties lost sight of that line a long time ago. The clearest ideological difference between the two is that Republicans believe that giving up anything is capitulation, while Democrats think that giving up everything is compromise.

And what if the Republican Congress doesn’t pass a plan consisting entirely of initiatives formerly supported by both parties? What will be the new strategy, the next step towards gaining their cooperation? Introducing a jobs bill comprised entirely of initiatives supported only by Republicans? The current strategy absolutely has to be successful. But if it is, I hope that Democrats understand that there is nowhere left to go in the interest of establishing a common vision. They have already gone well past the center of the aisle, and it would make no sense to reach any farther without simply joining the Republican Party. Instead of that, if this strategy of asking the wall to move fails yet again, perhaps it will finally come time for the Democratic Party to regroup and begin assembling the machinery to tear through that wall. Perhaps then they will at least try to stand up for underrepresented liberal ideals. That may bear with it the risk of making little progress, but the Republican strategy has already guaranteed that, and no one seems to worry about the political consequences of that. If it’s impossible for anyone to take the right action, I’d at least like the right ideas to be in the public record.

Democrats' Notions of Dealmaking

As appalling as was the discourse surrounding the efforts to raise the debt ceiling, I am far more appalled by the dialogue that I’ve been witnessing since the bill passed the House. It disgusts me when I see this measure referred to as a “deal,” and I’m positively sickened when it’s referred to as a “compromise.” I know by now that to expect Democrats to stand up for a cause, to be proactive and take an aggressive lead in lawmaking would be asking too much, but is it really unrealistic to imagine that they might come away from one of their terrific capitulations and express a little outrage, a little anger, or even just a little definite opposition?

Instead of any of that, virtually all of the Democrats I’ve seen commenting on this 100% Republican plan talk about it as if it’s a good thing. They use those words, like “compromise,” implying that both sides gave up a little something for the greater good. But the reality is an increasingly familiar story, in which the legislators who present themselves as being a little bit closer to sharing my views give up the very essence of their position, and all of the preceding debate and rancor comes to look like nothing more than an elaborate show designed to maintain the illusion that there is an opposition party. Why doesn’t that illusion instantly fall apart when we consider that that would-be opposition party still holds control over the majority of the government, but none of the policy discussions?

Only six Democratic senators voted against a debt ceiling increase that includes trillions in spending cuts and absolutely no revenue increase. How can that be explained other than by supposing that they either tacitly accept the positions of the Republican party or that they just don’t care enough about their contrary views to fight for them or even to register them publicly. Republicans have no qualms whatsoever about casting purely symbolic votes. Why do Democrats refuse to do the same, opting instead to demonstrate complete support for legislation crafted entirely by their so-called opponents? Twenty-eight Tea Party Republicans voted against this bill, and that suggests that there are nearly five times as many senators in the minority party who are in opposition because the completely conservative measure is not conservative enough than there are Democratic senators against it because no aspect of it is liberal in any way, shape, or form. Does the Democratic Party stand for anything whatsoever?

My representative in the House voted in favor of the bill, and his subsequent remarks reflect an unwillingness to so much as discuss what went wrong, or to acknowledge that this was anything less than the best thing for the country. Representative Brian Higgins has said that what is important now is moving forward and addressing job creation. I wonder if he believes that the two issues are unrelated. I agree that job creation is of paramount importance, but I think it was important before this fiasco was completed. As a matter of fact, that’s a significant part of the reason why the means by which we raised the debt ceiling was so important in the first place. If legislators continue to push for cuts without revenue, the support apparatus for the unemployed and impoverished can’t escape the chopping block forever, and the government will have no means by which to institute genuine job creation measures. Now that a lack of compromise has been turned into a bipartisan congressional act, it’s not appropriate for Democrats with an active conscience to leave it at their backs and call the issue settled. It’s not appropriate to forget that this is a terrible deal, and to suppress anger and avoid blame. And it’s not appropriate to describe this as a compromise, as even the President has been doing.

I’m pleased that one of the senators from my home state of New York, Kirsten E. Gillibrand, voted against the Budget Control Act, but given the fact that her voice is such a small, ineffectual minority in the party that controls her chamber of Congress, she is one of the very few major party candidates who retains my support after the passage of this act. This is a breaking point for me. I never considered myself a Democrat, but naturally I voted that way more often than not. From this point on, however, I will vote for neither Democrat nor Republican unless I have a damn good reason to believe that that label does not fit the particular candidate. The very best thing that can be said of Democrats in recent years is that they’ve attached such high value to compromise that they’ve made an ideology of capitulation. I’m not interested in voting for congressional representatives whose primary legislative goals are to present an image of bipartisan agreement at all costs. I want representatives who will fight tooth and nail to pass laws that they, and hopefully by extension I, think are best for the country. Is that too much to ask?