Party Gridlock Feeds New Fears of a Debt Crisis

[TomCADem]

Source: NY Times

Mr. Bayh, the centrist Democrat from Indiana, lodged his complaint about excessive partisanship and Congressional gridlock on Monday by way of explaining his decision not to seek re-election. But he is hardly alone in sounding an alarm about the long-term budgetary outlook, which has Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security costs growing at unsustainable rates and an inefficient tax system that cannot keep up.

“I used to think it would take a global financial crisis to get both parties to the table, but we just had one,” said G. William Hoagland, who was a fiscal policy adviser to Senate Republican leaders and a witness to past bipartisan budget summits. “These days I wonder if this country is even governable.”

Sensing political advantage, Republicans are resisting President Obama’s call for a bipartisan commission to cut the debt, although recent studies have implicated the tax cuts and spending policies of the years after 2000 when they controlled Congress and the White House. Even seven Republican senators who had co-sponsored a bill to create a commission nonetheless voted against it recently.

The president is not giving up. On Thursday, administration officials say, he will sign an executive order establishing the 18-member National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. He also will name as co-chairmen Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican Senate leader from Wyoming, and Erskine Bowles, a moderate Democrat from North Carolina who, as President Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff, brokered a 1997 balanced budget agreement with Congressional Republicans.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/business/economy/17gridlock.html?hp

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The odd thing is that even some folks on the left admire the discipline and willingness of the Republicans to try to bring the federal government to its knees in order to achieve political advantage. There is nothing to admire about such nihilism. Yet, the media celebrates such efforts as smart political strategy, rather than condemning such actions as treasonous.

The Republicans preach that government is ineffective, then they do their best to prove this point. Sadly, with the media cheering them on, voter anger at the gridlock rewards those who create such gridlock.

[FreakinDJ]

1. RATpubliCONs voting against the Bills they co-sponsored

[Demeter]

2. Maybe if Mr. Bayh had voted with the Democrats more often

there wouldn't have been any gridlock....just saying.