Government by brinkmanship failing the nation

Ladies and gentleman, this is what special-interest revolution in American politics looks like. How do you like it so far?

It has twice taken the nation to the very brink of financial disaster. Now it threatens to produce a tax increase that will not only be costly but also will threaten the fragile economic recovery struggling to get under way.

And the reason?

Credit mostly. Who will get credit for the tax cut or blame if it doesn’t go through. Who will get credit for the state of the economy and how that can be used to develop an election strategy for 2012.

It is couched in high-sounding phrases, of course. Why won’t the Senate Democrats come back from their Christmas vacations to get this work done? Will the House allow itself to be governed by an unruly band of obstructionist contrarians? Will the rich pay “their fair share?” Will government “live within its means?”

But who among us out here in the real world considers any of that more than a pretentious smoke screen designed to provide cover for the upcoming elections? In the midst of dire economic problems, our country appears to be caught in a blatant power struggle between opposing forces, both of whose fundamental intent is not the prudent management of a government that satisfies the broadest range of interests in a nation of 300 million socially, culturally and economically diverse citizens but the promotion of competing ideologies that will force those 300 million diverse interests into one political camp or the other.

The current battlefield, of course, is the wrangling over federal tax law changes that could welcome in the new year with the equivalent of a tax hike for all of us, doctors fleeing Medicare because of massive reimbursement reductions and tens of thousands of unemployed persons losing their safety net.

President Barack Obama has rightly said that this brinkmanship is not a “game of poker.” It is serious business involving the well-being of citizens and the economic life of the nation. But call it what you will, it is being played like a game. Is Obama to blame? Yes, he’s the leader of the nation. Is the Tea Party to blame? Yes, it is a faction of ideologues that openly and stridently professes its opposition to any level of compromise. Are rank-and-file Democrats in the House and Senate to blame? Yes, they are more interested in protecting their special-interest benefactors than in promoting and supporting viable change. Are rank-and-file Republicans in the House and Senate to blame? Of course. They just have competing special-interest benefactors.

And the rest of us are left out here to watch in rage and frustration. Everyone on both sides agrees that the tax cuts need to be extended while the economy heals. There is little disagreement about the need for Medicare reform and some of the key components of that reform. Who doesn’t want the rich to pay their fair share of taxes or for loopholes to be removed so corporations can’t get away with paying little or no taxes? Who doesn’t want government to spend less, far less?

And yet, here we sit. Mere days away from a deadline. Our leaders headed off, supposedly for their several holiday vacations, most of them waiting for someone to blink and bring them back to Washington.

Specific immediate solutions, alas, are in far-too-short supply, but we have one very pertinent notion to suggest for the long term. Remember how this “revolution” feels right now. Remember the names of those you see preening and shouting today, and think twice — long and hard both times — before you vote for any of them to return to either side of the aisle next year.