For Fear of the Voters

You shouldn’t count your chickens before they hatch — that is to say, praise for the compromise reached by Republican and Democratic leaders on the budget issue should be withheld until both houses of Congress have put their stamp of approval on the deal. But the change from the usual tactics of obstruction to even limited cooperation is nevertheless a welcome sign of hope.

For years, it was mainly Republicans, who demonized any budget compromises and new debt as being treasonous, who had the upper hand. The rest of the world watched with astonishment as America — always quick to tell everyone else the virtues of doing the right thing — repeatedly turned to quick fixes which drove it deeper into debt, limited its own options and weakened its national economy until eventually the entire global economy was threatened.

But like all compromises, this one also has a downside. Debt reduction will be delayed and budget reform postponed. The impact will be most severe on the poorest. For example, the long-term unemployed will see benefits reduced. Overall, however, the package is a better plan than the current across-the-board decimation of everything that negatively affected important future areas, including education and infrastructure repair.

Thus, the hope that this compromise will be accepted by the House of Representatives as it was by the Senate is justified, but there is a lingering danger. The tea party naysayers, along with ultra-liberal Democrats, will, of course, vote against it. If the party leaders do their job, however, they will know exactly how many defections they can accept and how many votes they must deliver to ensure success. The American center was always strong enough to assure that. The problem was only overcoming the power struggles within the respective parties to ensure passage of the compromise legislation.

Where did this return to reason come from? Fear of the voters. Congressional elections will take place in 2014; a new president will be chosen in 2016. In the early months following Obama’s re-election in 2012, the ideologues retreated to a strategy of blind obstructionism. But the government shutdown forced by the Republicans in October proved expensive for them, as they saw their public popularity figures plummet. It was only after this dose of reality that pragmatists such as Paul Ryan dared to come out and declare their interest in running for president in 2016. The 2012 vice presidential candidate forged a compromise for the Republicans; he will be the beneficiary when the compromise passes Congress. The budget compromise is forcing a showdown between the Republican “young guns,” with Florida Senator Marco Rubio on the side of the tea party critics of the budget compromise.

It would be good if the United States learned a lesson from this: When Republicans reveal their internal differences of opinion so publicly, it can result in overcoming the obstruction to Obama’s second-term goals. A good example is his immigration reform initiative, another area for legislators to fear the voters (particularly Latino voters, in this case).