Letter to the Editor: Bring compromise back
BY Don Bruning, Bartlesville
Sunday, September 30, 2012
9/30/12 at 4:46 AM
The U.S. Congress now has the lowest approval rating in history. So who is to blame? How about we the voters of this country who sent them there?
Many candidates pledged absolute unyielding positions on raising the debt ceiling, taxes, the budget, etc., and yet we ended up electing many of them.
They then refused to raise the debt limit without conditions that resulted in legislation forcing drastic cuts that nobody really wants for the military and most government programs starting Jan. 1. Their intransigence took our country to the brink of fiscal default resulting in the lowering of our credit rating and has sent us racing toward the so-called fiscal cliff at the end of this year.
Most members of Congress state their deep love for the Constitution. Yet they apparently forget that great compromises were required on the part of our Founding Fathers to arrive at that wonderful document (Google "U.S. Constitution compromises").
When one party to an issue exercises an absolute unyielding ideology we get gridlock such as what has happened in the current U.S. Congress. If one party is forced to accept all of the other party's demands that is capitulation, not compromise.
In this upcoming election let's not make the situation worse by electing any more candidates from either party to Congress who think compromise is a dirty word. Compromise is the lubricant that makes democracy work.
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