Editorial -- The Time for Partisan Ideology is Over.

The American people have spoken -- Barack Obama will be the President for the next four years. The American people don't completely buy into his ideas, given that they reelected a Republican Congress. But based on the election results, they feel he is still the best person for the job. Now that he's reelected, we need to let him be President. I would have said the same thing had Mitt Romney been e

lected.

Now is not the time for ideology or stonewalling. President Obama is not a socialist and most people who supported Romney are not racist. The President and Congress were elected to work together, not engage in partisan grandstanding. We need to get a budget passed and we need to decide what direction we wish to go. The way our political system is set up, nobody is going to get their way all the time; sometimes, we have to give up some of what we want so that our system of government can continue to function. To do otherwise will mean that billions of dollars of farm subsidies, upon which a lot of us live off of, will be in jeopardy along with funding for roads, bridges, and schools.

 

The time for partisan ideology and grandstanding is over. Today, we were driving over Route F, which had been cobbled together by the Highway Department a few times since 2006. It is getting into bad shape. We have driven along Route C from Allendale to Albany, which had always been a good alternative to 169, which was getting into bad shape. Now, that is no longer possible; there are places along C which are not passable at speeds greater than 30 miles per hour. Just as an example, for Congress not to act and reach a deal with President Obama would risk turning all of our roads into similar shape, not just our lettered roads. There would no longer be adequate funding for our roads and bridges should the massive automatic spending cuts be triggered in January of next year.

The Pew Research Center has done research into the attitudes of the American people towards deficit reduction and the great majority of the American people have spoken -- most people want compromise and not confrontation. 67% of Americans want Republicans to work with Obama while 72% of Americans want Obama to work with the Republicans.

There is another broad area of agreement as well -- most Americans (56%) want a smaller government providing fewer services instead of a bigger government providing more services. And (same link), most Americans want a combination of higher taxes and reduced services (69%), not one or the other. There are two common sense ways of reducing the size of government that will not threaten basic programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security -- one was put forward by a CEO on NPR's Morning Edition on Wednesday, November 21st, who pointed out that by simply eliminating duplication of tests in Medicaid and Medicare, we could save $750 billion annually. The same CEO was willing to pay more taxes in order to get rid of the deficit and pointed out that most of his fellow upper-income friends were willing to do the same thing. Another hundreds of billions can be saved by identifying and eliminating defense programs that have been passed by politicians engaging in pork barrel politics, but which the Department of Defense identifies as a want instead of a need.

 

 The problem comes when identifying specific programs to cut. Many people want to reduce the size and scope of government, but don't want their pet projects cut. So what we should do is focus on cuts that most of us agree on and have a debate over others in which there is a partisan split. Ideas which are opposed across the board should be off the table.

With that in mind, here is what the Pew polling finds general agreement on:

--Reduce Medicare income for higher income seniors;

--Limit tax deductions for large corporations;

--Raise tax on high income earners;

--Freeze salaries of federal workers;

--Raise Social Security cap for affluent earners.

Those areas in which there is a partisan split are as follows:

--Raise income taxes on income over $250,000 -- Will this take a substantial chunk out of the deficit, or will the government be taking money that would have otherwise been invested in the economy?

--Reduce military defense spending -- Now that we are leaving Afghanistan in 2014, what are our biggest national security concerns and how do we pay to address them?

--Raise taxes on investment income -- See the question on income taxes over $250,000.

--Reduce funding to help lower-income Americans -- Is it necessary to help people get back on their feet, or is it an incentive for people not to find work?

--Reduce aid to the world's needy -- Do we have a moral obligation to give to the world's needy, and if so, how do we keep it from going into the wrong hands?

These are areas in which we should not necessarily include as part of the package, but that we should have a constructive debate over.

Areas which voters have expressed disapproval of and which should be off the table include:

--Limit home mortgage interest deduction;

--Gradually raise the Social Security retirement age;

--Raise peoples' Medicare health care contributions;

--Reduce funding for college student loans;

--Reduce funding for scientific research;

--Reduce federal funding for education;

--National sales tax;

--Raise Medicare contributions;

--Reduce federal funding to states;

--Raise the gas tax;

--Tax employer-provided health insurance. 

Any agreement that comes out of the present talks between the Obama administration and House Republicans must respect the wishes of the American people. It must protect everything that our people have identified as needs and not wants. To do otherwise would undermine the foundations of our democracy and make a mockery of our political system even more than it is now. Politicians of both parties will suffer at the polls come 2014 and 2016.