The Curse of Political Parity

The period roughly stretching from the early 1950s, though the late 1970s, might be described as a political and legislative golden age in the United States. While there were plenty of rough spots, such as the two Cuban crises, Berlin and Vietnam, much good was done by government. The US successfully anchored NATO, countering a serious Soviet threat, nuclear missiles were removed from Cuba, the space exploration program was begun, and reached the moon. Medicare, and the civil rights, and voting rights acts, were passed and signed into law.

What made these many positive milestones possible? A permanent legislative minority. Republicans formed a “loyal opposition”, one that knew it could not achieve majority status in the near term. It's true that the two parties weren't nearly as far apart ideologically as they are now, but the long term minority status of a single party, in a two party system, led to a significant amount of true bipartisan cooperation. With no near term hope of winning a majority of seats in either house, there was no need for continuous legislative conflict in order to try to gain advantage in the next election.

This situation is long passed. Either party has a reasonable chance of gaining majority status in either house. The result is constant warfare on the part of the minority party, in each house, in an attempt to win a majority of seats in the next election. We see constant, highly charged, partisan guerrilla warfare, with the hope that the majority party will fail to accomplish anything, and can be held up to the electorate as such.

There is no likely cure for this condition. In fact, several factors make it probable that the situation will get worse.

1. The ideological divide between the two parties, and within the politically active electorate, has widened, and is moire likely to widen, rather than narrow. This ideological divide is itself being used to energize politically active supporters; this alone suggests that it will widen.

2. The federal government's involvement in funding and regulating daily activities has increased by several orders of magnitude since the early 1960s. This has created a “bigger pie” of issues over which the parties can fight.

3. The federal government, and many state governments, are rapidly approaching insolvency. Given the magnitude of government's role in the economy at all levels, both parties are heavily occupied with attempting to show how we can solve the fiscal train wrecks without real pain. There is no way. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are so frightened of the consequences of cutting any significant federal program, that Congress wouldn't even agree to form a bipartisan commission to study debt reduction. Such a commission is one of the last great refuges of political cowards, so our senators and congressmen must be really scared.

Where do we go from here? We don't go to any useful place. We keep hurtling toward the fiscal abyss, with the money throttle on high, and no serious possibility of a tax increase. Now, all together now, everyone raise their hand who thinks that Congress would use the proceeds from a tax increase to reduce the deficit, rather than increase spending. Hmmm... thought so.