Can Washington Change?

Unless my political instincts have gone totally haywire, I detect a more respectful, civil tone in Washington political discourse since the off-year elections. Certainly, the worrisome Egyptian situation the last few weeks has helped focus Washington’s attention and, to their credit, members of the political opposition in Congress have largely held their fire and deferred to the White House’s direction on this sensitive matter. It’s the first time in a while I can recall where politics stopped at the water’s edge in a major foreign policy crisis.

But, I would submit that the increased comity began before the Egyptian crisis erupted. Not surprising, in one sense, given that voters in last November’s election told Washington politicians to start acting like adults and begin working together. Much as some would still like to paint the election results as primarily a referendum on “Obamacare,” which the Republicans made the centerpiece of their campaign, the election results tell a different story. Those who oppose the health care legislation and those who support it are almost evenly divided, with a slight edge to opponents, although a percentage of those who opposed it didn’t think it went far enough.

President Obama apparently got the point about cooperation and has bent over backwards to reach compromises, as he did during the lame duck session, even surrendering on the key issue of a two-year extension of tax cuts for the wealthy. It was a huge price — some would say unconscionable price – and the issue will come up again when the current extension expires early in the next Presidential election cycle – but it seems to have paid off, at least in terms of increased cooperation in the short term.

As expected, the House Republicans still went through with the pro forma action of repealing the health care legislation, knowing the Senate would reject it and, if it ever made it through the Senate, President Obama would have his veto pen at the ready. Now, if a spirit of cooperation holds -- which admittedly is giant leap of faith, if not downright naïve on my part — they can start working to eliminate parts of the health care legislation which even supporters agree should be discarded.

More troubling are the actions by courts in a few states declaring the legislation unconstitutional because of the so-called individual taxpayer mandate. Ultimately, the issue will be decided by the Supreme Court, it seems, which makes me nervous, considering the decision the Roberts court made in the Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission case where they ruled that corporate contributions cannot be limited under the First Amendment. Fortunately, Senator McCaskill and others are looking to find a substitute for the controversial taxpayer mandate that might accomplish much the same result.

The other key issue where cooperation will be much harder to come by are spending cuts. Ironically, the major struggle for the new House Republican leadership may be within its own ranks. The large percentage of newly elected members, riding the Tea Party wave, are calling for much deeper cuts than the traditional Republicans, like House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, are willing to countenance. This might force the Republican leadership to collaborate with their Democratic counterparts to gain the necessary votes for any kind of effective legislative action.

And, finally, on this 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birthday, a word about those who paint themselves as his disciples. Sarah Palin and Grover Norquist, to cite just two prominent examples, extol Reagan for being the champion of tax cuts. They, especially Norquist, would cut taxes back dramatically in an effort to reduce the size of government, to the point where he once famously said, he wanted “to shrink government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Reagan wouldn’t recognize this caricature of himself and would shudder at being associated with tax cuts espoused by some of his so-called disciples. He soon realized, for example, that his 1981 tax cuts blew a much bigger hole in the budget than he estimated and over the remaining years of his Presidency raised taxes 11 times, somehow never drawing the far Right’s ire, although his successor George H.W. Bush lost a huge amount of Republican support in the 1992 election because he reneged once on his so-called “Read My Lips” pledge not to raise taxes. Go figure.

Where does this leave things? The sanguine, Candide-type side of me would like to think that Washington could start working together a lot more cooperatively than it has in the recent past. After all, it’s not rocket science. But, sad to say, watching the mean-spirited political atmosphere that has taken over Washington the last several years now, the skeptical realist in me wouldn’t bet serious money on that becoming a habit any time soon.

Gerald E. Lavey