I will try again. There is an article in the Sunday New York Times about the bigger battle to come after the current battle over this year's budget gets resolved. The threat of a shutdown is still real and approaching fast, like a runaway freight train. Federal workers in Washington and elsewhere are making preparations for the event, and yet it is not the end.
Meanwhile, liberals and progressives and Democrats are acting as if a shutdown was not going to happen. They go on about their causes, whatever they are, global warming, health care, women's issues, energy policy, income inequality, whatever, as if the only problem were fighting the opposition to their pet causes. They continue to play the game of debate and argument, confident that the rules of the game are fixed and stable, and will go on forever. I am reminded of the attitudes described by Michael Lewis in The Big Short. None of the players in the credit game could possibly imagine that the credit game would not go on forever-until it stopped.
The opposition to all of these causes is not so naive. They are no longer arguing the merits of this or that policy. The Tea Party and conservative Republicans are focused on the process, not the issues. They know that if they can derail the process, they won't need to worry about the cries of the liberals about this or that. If the system shuts down, none of the things the system could or should do will matter.
The conservatives are not averse to the ultimate threat of shutting the whole government down, if that is necessary. There are those among them, as I have said before, that would just as soon have the states, or leagues of states, such as the South, take over and dismember the country. Even if a shutdown does not occur, they are intent on cutting programs and agencies and departments they do not like, and they are succeeding.
Against this general assault on government itself, the pros and cons of particular causes or programs are irrelevant.
The arguments of the Tea Party are that the problem is the government, not particular programs. For them the government does too much, interferes too much with the lives of the people, whoever they are. Their solution is to cut the government, reduce its size and its power to oppress the people. For them shutting down the government may be extreme, but it is not an inconceivable, totally irresponsible end point of their efforts. It is a tool to use to force other changes they think are necessary.
What the Tea Party is responding to is the pervasive feeling in the country that the government is just not working, that it is broken, and needs to be changed. I agree with this position. In fact it is not a new position. Almost since the beginning of our country, people have complained that it does not work. In fact the government broke down once, and required a war, the Civil War, to put it back together. It broke down again with the Depression, and required a New Deal, and some would say another war, WWII, to put it back together.
Somehow, for over 200 years we have muddled through, in spite of the continual complaints. Even the threat of government shutdown is not new. It occurred once before in 1994. But more than that, for years now Congress has gone from one year to the next without a budget, without a deliberate, considered judgment as to the allocation of funds to the departments and ongoing programs. This year's threat of a shutdown is the direct consequence of the Congress' failure last year to formulate and pass appropriations for this year. Congress has operated for years with continuing resolutions at the end of the year to continue funding as is, which only papers over its failure to do its basic job. The government has been broken for years, but no one wants to admit it. Any business with such shoddy, irresponsible funding would have been shut down immediately.
The Tea Party solution to our broken government is to shut it down, or at least to reduce its size. I do not agree with this solution. I feel it is simplistic and unwise. The government is not just a factory that can be shut down and retooled. It is not a company that can be saved just by cutting spending and divesting itself of unproductive parts. We no longer, however, have the luxury of muddling through with the same basic structure. If we are to survive and compete in this new world, with China, India, Brazil and others, we have to be better than we have been.
My solution, although it may seem counterintuitive in the present circumstances, and would involve a basic change-but basic changes are needed-is to empower the House of Representatives. People need to begin thinking of the House as the proper locus of power in the federal government. The House has been subordinated to the rest of the government for too long. We need a campaign to elevate the House to its rightful status, over the President, over the Senate, and ultimately even, over the Supreme Court. This is a political issue, not a Constitutional issue. In the short term it would mean allowing the Tea Party to have its way--but we are not talking about the short term. (Who knows, the Tea Party might even support this. The wealthy rule now because of the weakness of the House.)