Obama tells Boehner he looks forward to work with Republicans to find common ground

[Jingthing]

I suggest people read Steven Pearlstein's analysis of the election results. I am a big fan of Pearlstein (suprise, surprise, you certainly can't call him an ideologue of any stripe) and I think he hit exactly the right tone here. The tea party did not "win" and the people most certainly did not send a clear coherent message. Now we have the danger of a gridlocked, feuding government for AT LEAST the next two years, and in these times, that is horrible news and will likely make things worse. I support his idea that cooperation between the three parties (ha ha) is vital for the good of the country, but I don't believe for a second much of it will happen. It is dysfunctional that the 2012 campaign has already begun, but sadly that appears to be the case (which means nothing will be done in the next two years). Politicians, prove me wrong ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/04/AR2010110407423.html

No, the message from voters this week was not clear. The public remains very much of two minds on the vital questions about the proper balance between markets and government. On some issues, opinion is evenly divided, but on others, voters hold opinions that, in policy terms, are contradictory. On still others, many voters are simply misinformed.

...

Thanks in part to the efforts of the tea party, voters' top priority was deficit reduction. Fair enough. But it's a little hard to square that priority with the next two on the voters' to-do list: creating jobs and cutting taxes. Under most realistic scenarios, taking care of those would almost surely increase the deficit. Only in conservative fantasies do tax cuts from today's levels magically increase government revenue. And if short-run job creation is your concern, the economic textbooks prescribe more government spending, not less.

The job of political leaders is to find a way to reconcile these conflicting priorities while explaining to voters the necessary and unpleasant trade-offs. So far, however, the Republicans' strategy remains as it was in opposition, pandering to the voters by telling them they can have it all.

...

Common ground is great, but it's not compromise, which requires both sides to accept stuff it doesn't like to get other stuff that it does. That kind of deal-making is a lost art in Washington. Unless both sides take steps to revive it, we're in for two more years of partisan warfare, political gridlock and economic decline.

Edited November 5, 2010 by Jingthing

[cdnvic]

One post removed for bringing a poster's ethnicity into things and using pejorative nicknames to describe persons. As for this topic, it's closed because people can't behave like adults.