I have asked myself this question a lot over the past few years, and I have come to the sad conclusion that the United States is no longer a functional representative democracy. Sometimes I doubt that we ever have been. However, this lovely new bill to tackle our debt and raise the debt ceiling just highlighted for me just how we no longer live in a democratic society.
Let me explain, and I'll be talking about the process that passed this deal, and then about what this bill does going forward.
The process
First, the American people had no say in this process. OK, we live in a representative democracy, not a direct one, and our say would be limited regardless. But the disconnect was unbelievable. Two-thirds of Americans, at least according to polls, support a resolution that would have cut some spending AND would have increased taxes and other revenues. Yet the taxes part was put off the table immediately, and only lip service was given to this idea. I'm sorry, but when you start negotiations with the idea to only increase revenue by closing loopholes and not actually raising taxes, that is giving lip service to the idea to increasing revenue - the loophole closing should have been the result, not the starting point. In a bargaining process where revenue would have been increased, the starting position should have been no cuts and an increase in taxes (preferable by adding new tax brackets). Instead, the beginning position was cutting revenues and closing loopholes. That is not a serious starting position to actually increase revenues; that is lip service. Revenue increases were never even an option in the Senate version. We cannot blame the TEA party Republicans for this - they make up less than a quarter of the House, and a smaller part of the Senate. Where was the voice of the American people in this process?
Even worse, in my view, is the fact that the ultimate bargain was done at the 11th hour behind closed doors, with NO input from other members of Congress. At the end, they could only vote up or down, and Congress really had no choice but to pass this. Was that the practical thing to do? Probably; however, we MUST look beyond the practical. Making deals behind closed doors that cannot later be changed is fundamentally undemocratic. As we all should know - democracies die behind closed doors.
The fact of the matter is that our "representatives" decided to make this fundamentally undemocratic move when discussing one of the most important things a democracy can discuss - what to do with our tax revenues that come from all of us and affects all of us. How can we have any kind of functional democratic system when so few have an actual say in the process?
The President and party leaders made this deal. But here's the problem with that. When we vote, we vote for representatives. No one votes for these party leaders - they are appointed by a select group of people, usually because of seniority. I don't want Harry Reid as the Democratic spokesperson in the Senate; I never had a choice in this. This is not democracy - this is something else. The fact that this may be a practical solution is irrelevant - democracy itself is impractical.
The fact that this debate even occurred is fundamentally anti-democratic. The debt ceiling was needed in order to fund financial obligations that had already passed Congress. The ones that opposed the debt ceiling increase were fighting a political fight that they had already lost, and yet, now they just won through the back door. That is undemocratic. Pure and simple.
The bill moving forward
What is going to happen now is even worse for any democratic process. A committee of 12 - 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans - are going to determine what this new bargain is going to look like, without any kind of input from the rest of us. We are not voting on this committee - it will be appointed. Does this happen with other committees in Congress? Yes, it does. However, this debate is far too important to be treated like this, and again - we will have NO say in this, and neither will the rest of Congress. When the super-committee makes its decision, the rest of Congress can only vote yes or no. No amendments whatsoever. That is a problem. And it is undemocratic.
This entire process highlights something - we no longer have a functional democracy, if we ever did. As a nation, we all know that Congress is dysfunctional. We all suspect that they are no longer representing us. Yet the national discourse never talks about the elephant in the room - if our government is no longer representing us, that means we no longer have a functional democracy. We all go on pretending that we do. This is only going to get worse, not better.
So what can we, the people of the US, do to take back our democracy? How do we begin to elect better politicians when we have little access to the process, and we seem to be irrelevant?