Yesterday’s News

In a rapidly changing society, anticipation and quick reactions are key. 2009 is almost here, and the new Congress (along with the President) will be beginning their term in the harshest economic climate since the Great Depression. They will be feeling the pain from a failed holiday shopping season with little reason for consumers to reverse this terrible trend in the foreseeable future. They will see continuing job loss, troop movements in Pakistan toward India, the in-fighting as Iraqi politicos jockey for power as America withdraws her forces, and the exchange of military horrible between Gaza and Israel. Even with the direction and focus of a new President, who has embraced both sides of the aisle in his cabinet, is Congress ready… well… not to be the same old, same old anymore?

The problem, when we make a “federal case” out of it, is that if we leave it up to Congress – a body of politicians beholden to ideologies and special interests that got them elected – the answers are often determined in the least practical and most doctrinaire method possible. Here’s an interesting quote from the December 14 Los Angeles Times: "Congress has not been anticipating crisis, but at least they have been reacting to it," said Sarah Binder, a political scientist at George Washington University. "But every time Congress acts, you can watch the markets tumble."

On the other hand, if you take the legislature out of the regulatory process and let the markets do whatever they want, if you allow the Executive Branch to rule by executive order or Presidential signing statement, well, you can take a good look at the economy and our status in world affairs and see where that strategy got us. The problem seems to be a vacuum in the “leadership” aspect of a majority of our elected officials.

As Janet Hook noted in the above L.A. Times article: “Polarized, beset by crises, and preoccupied with ideological and regional politics, this Congress followed a pattern all too familiar in the past decade. It railed and wrangled over the nation's toughest problems, but in the end failed to advance solutions… The House and Senate this year did pass major legislation in response to the nation's economic problems -- but for the most part, they waited to act until a crisis could hardly be ignored. Each time, lawmakers had to struggle to reach agreement. Sometimes, as in the auto bailout, the legislation was not even approved.”

In the end, we need leadership – not just at the Presidential level, but in our legislative bodies as well. Someone needs to ask bigger questions and let go of outdated reliance on ideological rigidity that has not worked at all, from the left or the right. We need to focus on jobs that can sustain, an educational system that can carry us back to being a growth economy and on preserving the remaining shreds of our national net worth. This is no longer a popularity contest, and sometimes, a legislator needs to take a position that might not, at this precise moment, be popular with that body of ideologues or special interests that got him or her elected.

But that’s precisely what we need… Congress men and women who are ahead of the curve, not desperately following an aimless and desperately meandering curve. We need leadership, and if the next Congress fractionalizes over its regional pork projects and wraps itself around irrelevant and inflexible doctrinaire philosophies, we need to vote them out. We need pragmatism to win now. The American constituency needs to be vociferous in our demand for our elected representatives to find solutions, implement them wisely and LEAD!

I’m Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.