Getting past our gridlock
When traveling abroad, I increasingly hear foreigners speculating that the United States is a country in decline, with a weakened political and economic system. That view of a blunted America is likely to grow after the midterm election results, unless politicians find a way to work together and make decisions.</br></br>Consider the recent evidence of foreign disrespect for America: China downgraded its credit rating for American debt last week; South Korea refused U.S. pressure for a new trade deal; European and Asian nations joined in protesting the Federal Reserve's plans to print more money to stimulate growth.</br></br>What the world sees, I'm afraid, is a weak U.S. president who isn't solving domestic economic problems, let alone global ones. But that's more a symptom than a cause. What's happening at a deeper level is a breakdown of the U.S. political system's ability to find consensus and make decisions. Washington doesn't work, as critics from the Tea Party right to the progressive left keep insisting.</br></br>The message of the past two elections is consistent, if you take a step back from the seeming left-right oscillation: Voters are angry about a Washington process that they believe favors elites and ignores Main Street; they've lost trust in government and they want change. The two parties try to bend this message to their own purposes, which only makes the partisan deadlock worse.</br></br>It's a kind of political doomsday machine: The more voters say they want to break with Washington's culture of insiders, the more powerful privately funded special interests become - with a corresponding freeze on Congress's ability to legislate. Take any of the issues that people say they care about - immigration, the deficit, tax reform, cutting military and other spending - and you will find evidence of this immobility.