Bitter Pills of
Compromise

Bitter Pills of Compromise

Commentary for Wednesday 04/11/2007 Making Compromises

The Quest for Mediocrity: In a perfect political world, an idea would come before Congress and if enough members thought the idea was good, or at least had promise, then other members would work towards improving the idea. Alas, this is not the case in Washington where Congress plays the game of partizan in fighting to make sure that the opposition political party doesn't gain favor with the voters. The stakes are high, it's all about power. They don't fight over what is best for the citizens, -- they fight for maintaining their party in power.

Good Ideas Are Weakened: Think of the word 'compromise'. If I told you that a building structure was compromised, you would understand that it was weakened in some way. A political compromise is the same way. In a hypothetical situation where an idea is presented by a member of a political party, and lets assume that the idea needs funding of 200 million dollars to be a success. The opposition party can easily see that this is a good idea, and if passed would make those of the proposing party look good. So they seek a compromise on the proposal to insure that it doesn't succeed. If the opposition party is successful in gutting the proposal to 150 million dollars in a compromise, who do you think is the big loser? Who do you think is the winner?

When the Public Weighs In: When the American Public weighs in on a matter without leaving room for compromise the result has a better chance of being positive. When the voters insist on a matter, Congress generally listens. That is why it is so important for voters to pay attention to what the Congress is up to. Without the public making it clear what they want done, the Congress will just waste everyone's time with political wrangling, as they try to curry favor with their political donors.

Method to Weaken Legislation: Generally speaking, compromises are just a means to weaken a piece of legislation. But it is just one tool in a toolbox full of tools to prevent either political party from looking good. There is the "Filibuster" rule, "Table Rule", "Recorded and Voice Vote Rules", "Point of Order", and many other parliamentary maneuvers for a political party to foil the opposition party. In the past, abuse of parliamentary rules was so bad, the minority party would refuse to make quorum thus preventing legislation from coming to a vote. Eventually, the congress had to rectify that rule to prevent tyranny by the minority. The new rule change prevented the "less than a Quorum" tactic. Political bribery via the compromise has evolved into the main tool for foiling the opposition party.

The Secret to Success The way to get meaningful legislation passed as previously stated, is to have the American people involved with their Government. A strong President is essential to sell his proposals to the public so that they can prod Congress into passing the Presidents agenda. Without the sale to the American public, most proposals are met with indifference to or ignorance of them. That leaves too much room for the Congressional Politicians to play their games and do nothing. The compromises will see that any proposed ideas are poisoned into oblivion. Worse, they could wind up passing really bad legislation because of those compromises.

Write your Senators and Representatives They will get the message and know that you are watching what they are doing. It gives them a little incentive to do better when they realize that the voters have expectations of them.

Robert welcomes your comment to this or any other of my commentaries.

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