Commentary: The debt ceiling debate: Was it lunacy?

By Boyd Lemon / Guest contributor

Polls show that the vast majority of Americans were appalled this week at the debate over the debt ceiling that seemed to take the country to the edge of economic catastrophe. Did this debacle take place because current Washington politicians are evil, incompetent lunatics, unlike the patriotic legislators who used to govern us according to what they perceived was in the best interests of the country? My answer is a resounding, NO.

First, as a political science major in college and an interested observer of the way democracy in this country has worked for more than 50 years, I have learned that democracy is a messy, inefficient method of governing (not that I am suggesting that there is a better method). The debate on the debt ceiling issue demonstrated that.

Second, one reason that the debacle seemed worse than congressional debates over contentious and important issues in the past is that until relatively recently we didn’t have the CNN and Fox News juggernaut televising each and every event minute-by-minute. People relied on summaries in newspapers and the evening TV news, which couldn’t broadcast every gory detail and every statement that the President and Congressional leaders made.

Third, the media hyped the story to scare people, as they always do, to increase their viewers and, therefore, their advertising revenue. There was never a chance that Congress and the President would allow the country to go into default on its obligations, including not sending out Social Security checks, Medicare payments, etc. The Congressional leaders actually made that clear, but the media underplayed that and repeated over and over that we might face this catastrophe. Default was never going to happen. What was being debated was under what conditions the debt ceiling would be raised.

Fourth, as a lawyer I participated in hundreds of complex negotiations to settle disputes. Sometimes, the parties were far apart in what they wanted. Most of the time the disputes eventually were settled, but it always took time and involved unreasonable demands in the beginning, posturing by both sides, extreme statements by both sides, threats of doom, walking out of negotiations and ultimately creative resolutions with which both sides were unhappy. That is exactly what happened these past two weeks, with much more at stake, involving a lot more people than the disputes I was involved in.

I don’t think that given the circumstances the debate was anything less than what could be expected. Everyone dislikes the bill that Congress passed and the President signed, but that is always the case in a negotiated resolution of a dispute. And that is what happens in a democracy, where one person or one minority group doesn’t have the power to do whatever they want. In other words, that is the price we pay to have our elected representatives make these decisions.

Our particular democracy is even messier than some others, because our forefathers in designing our democracy (which, incidentally was accomplished by a long debated, complex set of compromises among vitriolic speeches and accusations by the people involved) were extremely concerned, one might even say paranoid, that a President or a small group (remember there were only 26 Senators in the first Congress) could lead the country into disaster. So, they designed the complex systems of checks and balances (and compromises) that we all learned in school. These checks and balances make it difficult to get anything accomplished. That is exactly what our founding fathers wanted.

In this case, American voters got what they wanted and deserved. Last year, in response to a deep recession that Washington didn’t seem to be able to do much about, voters elected to the House of Representatives a small, but vocal group of extreme conservatives that call themselves the Tea Party. The way our federal government is set up a relatively small minority often can block the majority from doing what they want. That is what happened here. The Tea Party refused to allow the government to increase tax revenue by closing loop holes and eliminating tax deductions that benefitted only the rich (despite the fact that most members of the Tea Party are not rich); demanding a Constitutional Amendment to require a balanced budget (which would create an economic disaster in times of recession) and draconian cuts in entitlement but not in defense spending. They refused to budge, though most Americans, when polled, said they wanted a balanced approach — increased revenue and budget cuts. That is what you get when you elect people who have extreme views on either the right or the left. Actually, this is the main reason why democracy doesn’t work in many countries in the Middle East and Africa, for example. So, that is why I say, the American people got what they deserved.

One of the reasons people don’t like the bill that passed is because it puts off tough decisions on additional budget cuts and revenue increases to the end of November and assigns the task of resolving these issues to a special joint committee. That seems like delaying the inevitable and passing the buck. Well, it is. However, based on my experience in negotiations, when you have a stalemate and simply cannot come to agreement on some issues, but you want to resolve the overall problem, there are only two things you can do: put off decisions on the issues that are stalemated, or assign somebody else to resolve them). Otherwise, you will not reach an agreement. This realization always comes near the deadline for reaching agreement, as it did here. And in this case, the resolution was to do both, assign the issues to a committee to resolve and delay the resolution. That was the only way to resolve the issues that could be agreed on: raising the debt ceiling and making some budget cuts. There was nothing unusual about this resolution. In fact, in my opinion, it was quite creative, especially the provision in the bill called the “trigger.” If either the committee does not come up with an agreed resolution on new revenue and more budget cuts by the end of November, or they do, but Congress does not pass the committee’s resolution, then automatically draconian budget cuts that neither party (not even the Tea Party) wants will go into affect in both defense (opposed by most Republicans) and entitlements (opposed by most Democrats). This is a clever incentive for Congress to agree on some resolution of the issues it has not been able to agree on in the past several months.

In my opinion, what this country needs is (1) a major tax overhaul to raise more revenue from those who can afford to pay and lower taxes for the poor and the middle class; (2) relatively minor adjustments in Social Security benefits and Medicare so those programs will be solvent for the foreseeable future; and (3) cuts in defense spending and government programs that are not working or fail a cost-benefit analysis.  Whether this Congress and this President will be able to agree on such a program is doubtful. But then, in our government, as in life, nobody ever gets everything that they want.

And one more thing. Are you angry because politicians seem to care only about getting re-elected? Well, that is inherent in a democracy where decision makers are elected.  They want to be re-elected. So would you. Live with it!

— Boyd Lemon is a retired lawyer, who re-invented himself as a writer, living in Ventura. He recently returned from a year in France and Italy. His memoir, “Digging Deep: A Writer Uncovers His Marriages,” has just been published. It is about his journey to understand his role in the destruction of his three marriages. He believes it will help others to deal with their own relationship issues. Excerpts are on his website, http://www.BoydLemon-Writer.com