By Jonathan Stankiewicz

The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction was put in charge to reach an agreement on how to reduce future deficits. Last Monday the 12 lawmakers, comprised of six Democrats and six Republicans – three members of each party divided between the House and Senate, admitted defeat. Let the blame game begin.

Congress once again has proven that they do not have the ability to take on the tough decisions that face the United States.

“After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline,” said the Co-chairs, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), in a statement last Monday.

The group was charged with issuing a formal recommendation on how to reduce the deficit by at least $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. Shouldn’t this have been done the right way? Our country was founded on unity and since President Barack Obama was elected we, the people, have seen none. It has been like this for too long. Lately, it seems that our legislative body’s relationship with the president is like an old married couple. Obama being the nagging wife trying to get things done and Congress is the husband pretending to listen.

Consider it like this. Every family needs to pay their mortgage each and every month. That family can lose their home for missing deadlines and payments. It’s something that they have to do. This committee had a specific job that they failed to do. This wasn’t as if they were debating to make their beds or not, this was a pressing issue that they couldn’t agree on. They had a way out if they couldn’t come to a consensus. They shouldn’t have had one. Families don’t have ways to get out of paying their mortgage, do they? The group had to work together and they chose not to.

The underlying factor here is that Republicans and Democrats just don’t get along. There are exceptions, I’m sure, but this failure and the others before it are not minority examples. What both sides wanted was so different that this whole committee was doomed from the beginning.

Both parties are blaming each other, not that this is anything new to the American people. This disappointment will only add to the criticism from everyone that politicians today are too divided to accomplish the most important of duties. Our country has a trillion-dollar budget deficit. A trillion-dollar budget deficit.

The committee’s task of $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction wasn’t an easy one. That we can all agree with. Investors are more worried about the crisis in Europe than what the committee was doing or not doing. But now that they have failed, we are set up for another year of great uncertainty on taxes and spending.

President Obama has already warned congressional Republicans that he will veto any effort to try to circumvent the automatic spending cuts that would kick in if the committee failed. He is not happy and the American people shouldn’t be happy either. This is just unacceptable.

Democrats want to raise taxes since they believe it will increase revenue, while Republicans want to increase revenue by cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy. These views are fundamentally different. Democrats think that the disparity between the wealthy and the poor has gotten to an extreme. Republicans want to get rid of wasteful social programs that benefit the poor and the middle class. Why did we think that this would work? We can blame both parties and we can blame everyone on that committee, but what good would that do?

I don’t want to say that the task in front of them was easy. We all know it was impossible. This failure is just another example of how divided we are.
Obama, now with the upper hand, can now ask for a more specific program than what he has now. It would help Congress and the American people to make clear how he would combine stimulus over the next few years while putting the budget on a stable course. He could do this, but probably won’t.

We must also be mindful that he is now branding himself for election season. With the Republican candidates looking less competent after each debate, he may just sit back and allow the contrasts between them and him to continue. Hopefully we will not be subject to an extended period of apathy and dormancy from the Oval Office.

The citizens of this country are begging for our elected officials to fix the strained relationships before they completely deteriorate and we’re left with a broken system. It’s time to listen to our pleas.