Common Sense Won This Round

The U.S. Constitution is built on the sensible, fundamental idea that several centers of power will control and balance one another. It has been working for over 200 years and has even survived the Civil War in the 1860s. However, this system requires compromise, a term that a large part of Republicans in Congress today equate with treason.

The refusal to compromise forced them to capitulate instead [of Democrats] during the struggle over the budget, which was settled Wednesday night.

In principle, the agreement is what President Barack Obama and Democrats said from the start: The government gets its funds, so that it can re-open and the debt ceiling is raised. Something is certainly gained by these means: The U.S. and world economies avoided the shock inherent in an American suspension of payment.

However, this is no solution. A congressional committee will be given the task of putting together a budget plan for the next 10 years. A miracle is necessary for this [process] not to get stuck in the old cracks: the Republican “no” to every form of tax increase and Democratic reluctance to cut social benefit programs, where costs are out of control. In a few months, the U.S. could be dancing on the verge of the fiscal cliff once again.

In this round, Republicans have suffered an indisputable defeat. To everyone, except themselves, it was clear from the start that they would lose. Linking raising of the debt ceiling to scrapping Obama’s large health insurance reform was sure to fail. Democrats are in charge of the Senate, and the president has his veto.

The strategy became a complete failure in terms of public opinion. A large majority of the American people were against the Republican ultimatum. As predicted, confidence in Republicans fell in every poll, even though the whole of Washington took a beating. However, the budget crisis that they caused put the severe teething problems of “Obamacare” off the newsroom radar.

Five to midnight: The respectable part of the Republican Party gave up. Eighteen of their 45 senators still voted no to the agreement, as well as 144 of 231 delegates in the House of Representatives. A majority of the party’s elected representatives were thus in favor of an unnecessary and extremely risky U.S. bankruptcy. That is frightening.

The populist tea party faction is the main problem of the Republican Party. Here, we find people in denial of reality, who believe that a small bankruptcy would only be healthy for the United States and who may declare that the earth is flat in the next day or so. However, the whole party has drifted further and further to the right over the last couple of decades. Any leadership with authority can no longer be found, be it within or outside Congress.

Obama hardly has any reason to celebrate, but he has at least established the principle that the debt ceiling is not something that can be negotiated. This was the lesson learned from the last battle in the summer of 2011, when the president accepted large cuts in federal spending without getting anything in return after long negotiations. This is also the only reasonable line: The debt ceiling cannot regularly be a weapon in the hands of blackmailers.

Unfortunately, the real challenges remain. The idea behind the cuts in 2011 was that they were going to be so repulsive to both parties that they would never go into effect. Now, they have hit automatically and blindly, in a way that certainly reduces the budget deficit but also slows down economic recovery.

The U.S. is still without a long-term plan for public finances. Medicare, the medical care program for the elderly, especially needs consideration. The agricultural subsidies should be scrapped. A reform of the tax system and tax deductions is necessary. The country is in great need of more modern infrastructure.

Such nonsense was not important when Republicans were simply tilting at windmills. Democrats, who have been moving to the left, are not interested in structural debates either. This polarization means that Congress is incapable of making decisions for the future.

Most American voters can be found in the middle of the political spectrum, like voters in so many other countries, but the American right is very far from reaching that line of insight.