By Ed Asner and Burt Hall
"Even If Washington leads the nation in incivility, it is not likely to change until those outside of Washington demand it. What gets rewarded gets done, and for those of us in Congress, reelection is the ultimate reward. Vote out of office – or not elect in the first place – those who put partisanship over progress..."
Republican Senator Susan Collins
Washington Post, Oct 10, 2010
As we all know, our political system is broken. Not even the President of the United States can fix it. Our country is headed toward the status of a second-rate power. Some advanced countries have already surpassed us in things like economic growth, clean energy technologies and education. The 20th century belonged to America; the 21st will not unless we change our politics. Most Americans today complain about our politics, not realizing that they are the ones, and the only ones, with the power to change them. This article describes why such a change is necessary and how it can be accomplished.
The current characteristics of our two major parties differ in major respects. The Republican Party usually has fewer members, but more money to finance elections and is more unified. It almost always operates as one body either when in power or when in the opposition party. Their policies tend to favor big business and high income people. They long for smaller government and reduced taxes.
The Republican Party is dominated by its right wing. With the rise of the Tea Party, they are moving even further to the right. Most moderates have either left the party or need not apply. With fewer members but more money, their tendency is to use extreme measures to gain power. They are tough and have a well-organized attack machine. In fact, they are willing to put the economy and the nation at risk to gain political advantage. Use of obstructive tactics and expensive campaigns are their ways of compensating for a smaller party.
The Democrats Party is just the opposite. They usually have more members but less money to spend and depend more on smaller donations. Members are more diverse and range from the extreme left and left of center to the center and right of center. They ordinarily do not operate as one body either when in or out of power. They favor the use of federal power to promote economic growth, social progress and to help maintain a large middle class. They do not have a well organized attack machine. With the advantage of greater numbers, their means of holding on to power tend to be more straight forward at the Washington level, but open warfare can erupt at any time in local elections.
The swing voters are the many Independents. They shift their support from one party to the other depending on a number of factors, but mainly the economy and a particular party’s agenda. The Independents are the target of both parties because they will determine the outcome of the election. The more one party undermines the image of the other, the greater chance it has to attract Independent voters and win the next election.
At the present time, the Republican Party is out of power and desperate to take back as much as possible. In two or four years from now the situation could be just the reverse. The issue is how far does a particular party go to regain power without crossing the line and doing irreparable damage to our country?
Those without power are obviously willing to go further than those in power. When they decide to regain power at any cost, their behavior can even reach levels of insanity. That is when our country loses. The only defense the American people have is to judge how reckless the political discourse is and act accordingly. Edward R. Murrow gave this advice to his staff before his famous broadcast on Senator McCarthy, "No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are his accomplices."
Republicans are out of power because they have had two recent failed administrations. They doubled our national debt and left a new President with two mismanaged wars, a failing economy losing 700,000 jobs a month, a $1.3 trillion deficit and a marked increase in poverty. Despite this record, however, they have their sights set on control of the next Congress. If they succeed, it will be the result of the greatest con job in history of American politics. As one highly-respected journalist put it, the current election is "about whether a movement that’s gone over the cliff will be rewarded for doing so."
Republicans are relying for their success on a recession weary electorate -- a recession that they actually created. They are also relying on a narrative which is at odds with the facts and rational thinking. It takes the form of fear, deception and hate-inspiring rhetoric. The narrative deceives the public about who the President is and what his intentions are. They give credence, for example, to wild assertions about his birthplace, religion and political leanings.
Misinformation on size of government and its expenditures is another example. Total government pay rolls have actually fallen 350,000 and increased expenditures have been relatively small if you exclude tax cuts and aid to our states and cities. (See Nobel economist Krugman’s analysis in New York Times of Oct. 11.)
Republican leaders of the Senate and House, McConnell and Boehner, are holdovers from the past. After being key players in the two failed administrations, their main accomplishments have been to obstruct, delay and block current administration initiatives. Political expert Dan Balz, of the Washington Post, raised this question: who would follow these two after they have led a two-year "angry revolt" against a new President?
When asked on Meet the Press, Senate Minority leader McConnell could not produce a single idea on how to cut deficits. He would make tax cuts for the rich permanent despite looming, unavoidable deficits. He intends on holding the middle class tax cuts hostage until those for the wealthy are made permanent. He acknowledged that reductions in spending would be forthcoming from the president’s new Deficit Commission. What he neglected to say was that he and his fellow Republicans had blocked a much stronger legislative version of that Commission as soon as they discovered the President was for it.
In a major speech on the economy, Minority leader Boehner lectured the audience on what he was against, but not on what he was for – except, of course, making tax cuts for the rich permanent. He offered no proposals, no plans and no agenda. In late September, however, House leadership unveiled an agenda, called a Pledge to America. It is strong on rhetoric and weak on action.
The Pledge would roll back regulations on Wall Street and banks and return to Bush tax cuts and spending levels. They would cut a 100 billion in non-military spending, but don’t explain how. They ignore entitlement spending, a major part of our federal budget. After opposing for months the President’s recently enacted tax cuts for small business, they are now proposing one. They would repeal the landmark health care law, something the President would certainly veto, while replacing it with some of its most popular provisions. They would restart the cold war by accelerating our missile defense. Their surge in military spending and the revenue lost from Bush tax cuts would explode our federal deficits. A more complete analysis of the Pledge to America can be found in a New York Times editorial of September 26.
Republicans could have taken the lead in further reducing our cold war posture. They could cut back on military spending and reduce the presence of U.S. forces around the world. Today, we are spending more on defense than all other nations combined. Some of our vast military expenditures should be shifted to modernizing our nation’s infrastructure and investing in energy alternatives, education and basic research. Without a vibrant economy we cannot support a strong national defense.
If recent history is any guide, here is what you can expect under Republicans control.
• Special interests, large corporations and lobbyists will dominate legislative outcomes.
• Social Security and Medicare will be drastically changed.
• Our fiscal condition again will be in jeopardy due to unaffordable tax breaks for the wealthy, deregulation of financial institutions and nonuse of the pay as you go budget system for new programs.
• So much of our debt will be sold to Far East countries that they will have an ever increasing leverage over our foreign policy and domestic economy.
• Unemployment will increase because government will no longer invest in new technology and because Republican trickledown economics simply doesn’t work, as demonstrated in the last decade.
• Emphasis will shift from developing and producing American made products to further outsourcing of jobs overseas.
• Energy independence will again be downgraded and our dangerous addiction to oil and coal pollutants will continue to dominate our energy needs.
• Worldwide scientific evidence of climate change will be rejected, even though responding to it is a win-win situation for America.
-- If the evidence is wrong, a U.S. response will, nevertheless, create alternative sources of energy, more jobs, energy independence and a much more livable planet.
-- If the evidence is right, a U.S. response will, in addition, help avoid a burnt-out planet, weather catastrophes, floods from melting glaciers and wars between countries over shortages of oil, food and water.
• We will return to ineffective, expensive wars instead of focusing on diplomacy, international cooperation and surgical operations against terror networks.
• There will be a return to a diminished world view of America.
• We will not tightly control nuclear weapons or accelerate their dismantling.
• Our educational system will continue to decay and there will be lesser financial support for qualified people to earn college or other degrees. We will fall further behind other countries.
• Progress on health care will be reversed, leaving much of the country with inadequate or no coverage and unaffordable costs.
During transition president Obama was faced with a financial collapse similar to the one we experienced in the 1930’s. Anyone who lived through that economic crash knows of its horrors and the seemingly endless recovery time. Neither presidential candidate saw the recent major recession coming or had worked out corrections. However, the new President quickly intervened to stimulate the economy and save financial institutions and our last major manufacturing industry, the automobile companies. He restored credit and assisted the housing industry. Although large bailouts were necessary, they were actually initiated by the previous administration and most of the money has been or is being paid back with interest. Only history will tell whether the President could have done much better. The alternative was an economic meltdown.
Somehow Republicans have managed to shift responsibility for their economic mess to the party that left them with huge surpluses. Although the new President had no alternative but to increase the federal debt in order to rescue the economy, Republicans conveniently ignore the fact that it was they who painted him into this corner. After leaving the President on the edge of a terrifying precipice, Republican leaders decided their best strategy was to block his efforts at recovery and leave him with a lagging economy. This strategy has worked for the Republican Party, but not for the American people.
DANGERS OF REVERSING COURSE
The American public has a real dilemma. It’s only natural that in tough times they want to throw the incumbents out of office. On the other hand, putting new hands on the levers of power presents a number of problems. The middle of a national crisis is not the right time to revert back to the political party that created it. Disrupting power in the midst of a change in direction can have unforeseen consequences and lead to chaotic state. As the old saying goes, it doesn’t pay to change horses in midstream.
Putting a party back in charge of Congress that lacks credible solutions would be a high stakes gamble when what we really need is to continue rebuilding and make steady forward progress. Republicans would have difficulty running the Congress because they are now a divided party. Many of their members are dissatisfied with the departures of their own leaders from the principles they stood for. And, currently, Republicans lack the required diversity to govern because their great moderates of the past have disappeared. There will be no one to sit down and work with Democrats. The center of the Republican Party, where most Americans are, has vanished.
Should Republicans gain partial or total control of Congress, there is little chance that the two parties will work together in the public interest. Partisan warfare will be worse than ever. Republicans will waste time and money with multiple investigations and impeachment as former House leaders Gingrich and DeLay did in the 90’s. In the words of a noted political journalist, Republicans will probably "gain just enough power to make the country ungovernable." Nothing will get done and the government may be shutdown. Those who remember the last government shutdown of our essential services will not want it repeated.
Today, at least painfully slow progress is being made. Financial institutions can no longer run wild and endanger the economy. More people will have health care and better coverage. Instead of putting off energy independence, as we have for some 40 years, we will expand the manufacture of clean alternative sources and create millions of jobs here in the U.S. Middle class tax cuts may be extended. We may eventually enact comprehensive immigration reform and finally deal with the threat of climate change.
According to the latest U.S. Census, the gap between our rich and poor during the last decade grew to the widest on record and represents the greatest disparity among Western industrialized nations. As one prominent columnist recently wrote, our economy should no longer bestow fabulous wealth on a tiny part of our population, while undermining the living standards of the middle class and crushing the poor. Only twice before in our history, has so much been held by so few – the late 1920’s and the era of the robber barons in the 1880’s.
He argues that The U.S. economy needs to be rebalanced so that benefits are shared more widely and more equitably, and so that spending power across the entire population can sustain a flourishing economy. If we really want a robust middle class, it is more likely to develop with the current administration’s efforts on improving education, investing in new technology, assisting small business and extending middle class tax cuts.
Before being returned to power, Republicans must assume responsibility for today’s conditions and replace their leaders with some who have a capacity to govern under very difficult conditions. They should select broadminded, imaginative leaders who put their country first over party. They should also broaden the base of their party to accept moderates, like Colin Powell and Mayor Bloomberg. Once intense campaigning is over, they should become the "loyal opposition", not the enemy.
ONLY THE VOTING PUBLIC CAN CHANGE OUR POLITICS
What kind of political system and democracy do we want? Should it be one where the political parties refuse to agree on anything regardless of merit and then mislead the public about their differences or one where the parties work together and, when that’s not possible, tell the public at least something close to the truth about their differences?
The first step in political change is to broaden the base of the Republican Party, bring back moderates and encourage responsible leadership. If moderates are encouraged to serve, the party can return to its more successful broader base.
The second step is to follow the basic principle that, when one party is defeated at the ballot box, they must pay a price and it must be done in the public interest. Once intense campaigning and political infighting is over, our system of democracy demands that we pull together and support the newly-elected President. The losing party becomes the loyal opposition and the winning candidate becomes the President of all the people. That’s how we became a world power.
Minority leaders must be team players, especially in times of national crisis. America must always come first over political party. Divisive leaders must be rejected at the polls. As President Lincoln said, a divided country cannot long endure.
The third step is to take foreign and billionaire money out of our politics. Why in such hard times are shadowy organizations giving hundreds of millions of dollars to influence election outcomes? Why aren’t the donors disclosed? Are they secrectly buying elections? What do the donors expect in return? Let's try public financing for several elections to see if it upgrades our democracy. A public outcry against excessive money influence on elections could open the door to this interesting experiment. And, while you're at it, impeach those Supreme Court Justices who opened the door to undisclosed sources buying our elections.
Finally, the public must penalize political parties in order to establish acceptable ground rules for their political conduct. The penalty would be for voters to leave obstructionist parties in the minority and reject individual politicians who use divisive and destructive tactics. Once the voting results are analyzed and made known, we will begin to see (1) a more acceptable level of political discourse, (2) a more united country and (3) a government that works for the American people rather than for politicians.
Once our politicians get the message, watch how quickly they will change their ways. We must change the relationship between our citizens and their government. The voting public must understand that they are the only ones with the power to make this happen. If we continue on our present course, the public will only have themselves to blame.
See you at the Oct. 30 Stewart/Colbert Rally in Washington on Restoring Sanity To Our Politics.
RESUMES
Ed Asner is an award-winning actor and long-time political activist. He served as president of Screen Actor’s Guild and co-authored the book, Misuse of Power. Recently, he starred in the Academy Award winning movie "UP" and is currently playing FDR in theatres across the country.
Burt Hall previously was Group Director, U.S. Government Accountability Office on national security matters. He also served on a congressional commission and with the Office of Management and Budget. He is a graduate of the Harvard Advanced Management Program, book author and WW II vet.