After the financial
meltdown of 2007-2008 that most countries quite haven’t recovered from yet, we
have seen a polarization of the debate concerning the size of the state and the
role it should play in man any sphere of society, especially social services
and the regulation of the market. The centre position, moderate, which includes
some elements of free market while also proposing Keynesian theories, seems to
slowly disappear in the profit of the good old debate between the left and the
right, as seen in the quasi-disappearance of the Liberals in Canada and the
surge of the New Democratic Party.
In the United States,
the situation is quite different since the radicalization of one party, the
Republican party with the election of Tea Party members, has led the other
party, the Democrats, to leave a position that has often been characterized as
centre-left to move towards the centre and centre-right for some economic
policies, while also trying to advocate the presence of more social programs,
as has been seen by the abrogation of the Affordable Care Act. While it is
difficult to characterize major political decisions in a left-right political
spectrum, it is true that the refusal to compromise by one party led the other
to adjust its policies to try to satisfy, unsuccessfully, the demands of a
renewed conservative party.
The radicalization of
the Republican Party seems to have been the most apparent after the
mid-election of 2010 that saw a lots of Tea partiers getting elected to
Congress. While markets were going wild and with the risk of an economic
meltdown in the United States, the Republicans, strongly influenced by the Tea
Party, opposed any tax hikes and the end of fiscal heaven for the most fortunate,
putting the normal citizen’s life and economies in jeopardy. While the
Democrats were trying to pass the Budget control act of 2011, the Republicans
insisted on the necessity of deep cuts in order to raise the debt ceiling and
were not ready to compromise, which puts jobs in danger in an economy where the
unemployment rate was already pretty high.
The failure to negotiate
even provoked a downgrade of the nation’s credit by Standard & Poor’s to an
AA+. In one of the worst financial crises of the last three decades, ideology
and partisanship should be put aside for the common good of the average American.
Not only is the
Republican party victim of radicalization but it is also slowly abandoning the
poorest Americans. While there was hope that the two parties would come
together for the good of the common people after Paul Ryan claimed his will to
work with Democratic Senator Ron Wyden to reform his budget plan, it soon
vanished in thin hair. It proposed not only to dismantle important government
programs, abandoning the poor but also to subside programs to local
communities, which are often cash-strapped, with some of them already facing extreme
levels of unemployment. Even for fiscal conservatives, this plan is clearly not
realistic and not within their ideology. It proposed no spending cuts in the
defense, a major cause for the American debt and it would not balance the
budget until 2035. Mr. Ryan even voted for an increase of $8 billion more than
what President Obama agreed with Congress in the summer of 2011, which makes
this plan even more unrealistic on both sides, whether you are a Republican or
Democrat.
All of this serves to
prove the ridicule behind the necessity of always opposing the other ideology
in politics, even if it’s for the common good. It’s time for a reform of the American
political system so that the people can finally fight the inaction that has
been provoked by a polarization of the debate and unwillingness to compromise.