Two Ideas That Could Overcome Gridlock
WASHINGTON -- Is the country condemned to another two years, at least, of gridlock?
The world-weary take on the midterm elections is an indifferent shrug. Whether Democrats control the Senate or Republicans, nothing will be accomplished anyway, this apathetic argument goes.
The Republican House will be unchastened. The Senate rules will continue to constrict, under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or Majority Leader Harry Reid. President Obama has essentially given up on legislation; the remaining bricks in his legacy will involve executive action and foreign policy.
Perhaps. Surely the era of even attempting the grand budget bargain is over. Legislative success is measured by the absence of complete irrationality -- breaching the debt ceiling, hurtling over the fiscal cliff.
And yet, maybe there are some pathways for more modest progress. Certainly, the appetite remains among lawmakers in both parties who increasingly wonder about the point of it all. No one takes pride in holding the 53rd vote to repeal Obamacare.
There is a credible case that a Republican-controlled Senate could prove more productive. The new, tenuous majority, with an eye on 2016, will want to prove itself, and will have more leverage over recalcitrant House Republicans. Meanwhile, if there an urge for a deal -- say, on corporate tax reform -- Republicans might as well pursue it with this president, who won't use the achievement as re-election fodder.
What could get done that the Obama might sign?
On two pressing issues -- paying for badly needed infrastructure and further controlling the rise in health care costs -- two leading Democratic think tanks have proposed intriguing, bipartisan ways forward.
The first, from the centrist group Third Way, is actually a fraternal twin set of partisan plans. In Third Way's cheeky phrasing, "Bipartisanship has failed. So let's try partisanship."
For their part, Democrats would secure an additional $400 billion of spending for infrastructure, research and education over the next decade. The price would be to identify equivalent savings in mandatory spending programs.
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