Night after night, political pundits (or is talking points pusher the more correct term) keep longing, or bagging, for a spirit of bi-partisanship to take hold in America again. This sounds great, but upon further analysis it becomes clear that bi-partisanship is not what it’s cracked up to be. Let’s look back from 2000 on and witness what bi-partisanship has given us:
- No Child Left Behind (a law so massive and intrusive that almost everybody hates it)
- McCain-Feingold (so bad the Supreme Court had to step in)
- Medicare Part D (the biggest regulatory boondoggle in recent memory)
- The Patriot Act (a good intentioned law that has been used extensively in other realms)
- The War in Afghanistan (soldiers are dying and it seems no one cares)
- The War in Iraq (way too long, way to deadly, and way too expensive)
- TARP (nobody likes this thing in public)
Our love-affair with bi-partisanship is based on the fact that many of us truly believe that there is no real difference between Republicans and Democrats. If they can just sit down together they can make it work, we lie to ourselves every election year. Yet when they do, we end up being disappointed again and again. What do all of those items above have in common? For the most part, every politician is running away from them. If bi-partisanship is such a great thing then why aren’t those who engaged in the process praising the fruit of their labor?
1 comments:
Obama, Pelosi and Reid wanted bi-partisanship so that when the boat sank (like Obamacare is doing now) they could point the finger across the aisle. Good for Republicans that they stayed out of the mess. They'll be rewarded at the polls on November 2, but they better go to Washington and earnestly try to reduce the size of government and the deficit or two years will come all too quickly for them.
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