A failing test of bipartisanship

House Democrats Thursday sent a chilling message to Americans hoping that bipartisanship in their government could actually work. In angrily refusing to permit debate on the tax compromise reached between President Obama and Senate Republicans, the Democratic congressmen signaled a willingness to endure at least two years of legislative gridlock and perhaps even eventually surrender all their economic goals all because they can't stomach, even temporarily, what they see as a tax break for the rich.

But Thursday's Democratic caucus vote, and the tax compromise itself, actually was about much more than payroll taxes. It was about more than estate taxes. It was about more even than whether tens of thousands of long-term unemployed Americans will have their financial safety net pulled out from under them in three weeks.

It was about making government work.

Truer words were never spoken than the president's prediction upon announcing the compromise that “everyone will find something in this compromise that they don't like.” That, after all, is the nature of compromise.

But it is also true that all factions can find something in the compromise that they do like. Republicans get tax rates at the current levels for everyone if only temporarily and the $5 million figure they want as the cutoff before the estate tax kicks in. Democrats get the extension of unemployment benefits and the luxury of time on the tax issue.

The fact is that if something very close to this compromise doesn't get worked out, come Jan. 1, the hardheaded side of the Republican Party will have its way and the jobless will be left out in the cold and everyone, low-income and middle class wage earners as well as the wealthy, will see a stiff tax increase.

More ominously, if those in both parties who are willing to hold the nation hostage to principle hold sway, we can expect little more than the same crazy ideological pendulum swings that have ruled for at least the past decade.

In Obama's words: #8220;We will never get anything done. People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the American people. And we will be able to feel good about ourselves and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are and how tough we are.#8221;

And the only things anyone will reap will be frustration and animosity.

We hope Illinois' Democratic delegates in the House show more wisdom than this.

We urge Illinois' two senators freshman Republican Mark Kirk, and leading Democrat Dick Durbin to exhibit the bipartisan cooperation that Americans have been demanding for years. For, this is not just a matter of using government to advance ideological principles; it's a matter of demonstrating whether bipartisan government can work at all.