COMPROMISE THIS!

#1-------------#6-------------#12

Compromise! That’s what President Obama is looking for from the Republicans: Compromise. My response to the President is compromise this! At the beginning of each new year we see some pseudo-authority come out with a list of over-used or banished words and I think that the word “compromise” should top the list, especially when it comes to Washington politics. Some very wise individual recently pointed out that it was “compromise” that got this country into this mess and I agree. I also believe if there ever was a rule of compromise in Washington politics it is forever lost; but somehow President Obama does not agree.

It seem like “compromise” is a favorite word for Mr. Obama. He seems to invoke it regularly and with conviction. During the recent debt ceiling debate, Mr. Obama said, “America, after all, has always been a grand experiment in compromise. It is hard to see where the compromise will come.” 7/25/2001

Following the passage of the debt ceiling legislation, Mr. Obama quipped, “But this compromise does make a serious down payment on the deficit reduction we need.” 7/31/2001

Speaking in the Rose Garden about unemployment, Mr. Obama said, “They’re looking for work...That ought to compel Washington to cooperate. That ought to compel Washington to compromise.” 8/2/2011

Or, “Americans are fed up with a town where compromise has become a dirty word.”
8/8/2011

And during this week’s weekly radio address, Obama challenged the House and Senate by saying, “Members of Congress are at home in their districts right now...maybe they’ll get back to Washington ready to compromise.” 8/13/2011

What are you talking about, Mr. President? The art of compromise is dead and it died about two presidential terms ago. You see, as the rift between the political parties grows wider, and it is growing wider by the day, the ability for Washington to reach any common ground on anything gets smaller and smaller.

Let me try to explain citing a simple analogy. Let’s say the political spectrum in terms of liberal vs. conservative is visualized using a simple 12 inch ruler. The number 6 on the ruler is the political center. During the by-gone days of Senators Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Hubert Humphrey or Bob Dole, the political left found itself hovering around the number 4; while the political right was at 8. In order for the two 2 sides to reach an agreement or consensus on an issue, neither side had to move very far towards the center.

Today, with the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid vs. Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint, et al the political left is solidly entrenched at number 1 and the right has claimed the number 12. When President Obama tries to persuade the Republicans to compromise, what he is really asking them to do is traverse the ruler all the way over to the number 3. As you can see, that is a long way from the number 12 and even quite a leap from the political center at 6. The reverse is also true when Republicans ask Democrats to meet them half way. To them, half way is number 9.

As you can see, today’s political ideology is so far apart that compromise can never work without either side giving away their respective stores; and that is not going to happen. That is why Washington appears to be in a constant state of gridlock. For example, everybody in this country knows that the Washington entitlement programs are sucking our Treasury dry and that the future financial commitment to these programs is both unattainable and unsustainable. And yet, we hear the House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi defiantly say, "I could never support any arrangement that reduced benefits for Medicare -- absolutely not." President Obama echoed those sentiments by declaring “Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposal to reform Medicare and Medicaid as un-American and unworthy of debate.” On this issue, it appears that neither Pelosi nor Obama is willing to move any further right that #2.

When it comes to increasing taxes, the Republicans, it appears, refuse to move any amount away from #12 on the ruler. So, with the political agendas of both party’s set that far apart, how can anybody expect to reach a compromise? For President Obama to continue to plead for compromise just shows how absolutely out of touch he is with reality.

Since the United States polls itself as a center-right nation (that’s about a 7 on my political ruler) it’s hard to image how the Progressive movement managed to push itself that far to the left. Granted, the conservatives have moved a tad too far right but I believe pressure from the independent voters can bring them back to about a 9 on the ruler. The left, conversely, is totally committed to an entitlement state and a country resembling England, France, Germany, Italy or Greece.

That is why compromise is dead as a mediation tool and the only way to resurrect its effectiveness is to reconfigure Congress in a way that moves our representatives more towards the center. It’s time to vote all of the nut jobs out of office who envision the future of this country as a satellite of the European Union of Socialist Nations.

The Wall Street Journal editorial on August 2, 2011 summed it up best: “The financial crisis followed by the Keynesian and statist revival of the last four years have brought the U.S. to this downgrade and will lead to inevitable decline. The only solution,” they say, “is to return to the classical, pro-growth economic ideas that have revived America at other moments of crisis.” That does not sound like compromise to me.