Friday, October 14, 2011

"LET'S WORK!"


Words.

"Here in Washington, our leaders seem to be governing under the creed of the old Brooklyn Dodgers: Wait ’til next year.

The baseball team’s long-suffering fans consoled themselves with that phrase after each failure to win the World Series. And now lawmakers and political advisers are using it to justify their failure to do what they are supposed to be doing to fix the nation’s problems.

 ...Under the wait-’til-next-year logic, Republicans believe that if they can gain control of the Senate, and maybe the White House, all their problems will be solved. Democrats, though less enthusiastic about their prospects, think that if they can make some gains in the House, and if Obama can win a second term, their agenda will have renewed momentum. And so both sides acquiesce in a standstill: a series of short-term funding bills and a supercommittee that postpones the most painful choices until after the election.

But the wait-’til-next-year approach ignores one crucial consideration: The 2012 elections, whatever the outcome, aren’t going to change the stalemate that has gripped this town.

...Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell seems to grasp this in his more candid moments. He has argued that a divided government provides “the best time, and some would argue the only time, to do really hard things, because really hard things done on a partisan basis cannot be accomplished” without creating “a wipeout in the next election.”

...But Americans have already made a clear choice, repeatedly: They want their representatives to compromise. In the new Washington Post-ABC News poll, 64 percent said lawmakers should attack the debt problem with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. But only 25 percent thought lawmakers will agree on a plan.

The lack of faith that lawmakers will do the obvious, necessary things goes a long way toward explaining why Congress enjoys an approval rate of 14 percent. In this case, good things do not come to those who wait."

THE WASHINGTON POST: The waiting for nothing Congress

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