Really, Judd? - Granite Grok

Really, Judd?

“working” is only goodness when “working” is on the right stuff and achieving the right results inline with proper governance

A few days ago, former US Senator from NH Judd Gregg had an Op-Ed in The Hill (an inside- DC-political-baseball newspaper) was decrying the loss of the “bipartisan centrist” and it included :

…Our politics has for the most part always been played between the forty-yard lines. Unlike a parliamentary form of government where the majority party has all the power, our system is designed to be incremental — and it usually is.

As a consequence, it is almost always necessary to include the minority party in any action that is going to actually lead to governance, especially if the act contemplated affects a significant number of Americans.

This means that if there is no middle ground, nothing happens. Big issues of significant national concern go unaddressed.

I dryly note that this vaunted “centrist moel governance” has resulted, as a result of BOTH Republicans and Democrats, with a mind-blowing $16 trillion dollar debt laid upon our childrens’ children – but only if we last that long as a nation even if it has been just incremental (“just turn that knob on the stove up EVAH so slightly, wouldja?”).  Nice to see that you’re owning up to owning that, due to this middling governance that I hear so lamented lately.

We now have a Federal Government that acts as if every other political entity is entirely subordinate to its decrees even as Congress continues to pass laws to which it exempts itself.  I also note, with much lamentation, that you helped to set the stage for the current brand Executive branch governance that has decided that it no longer has to mind that the Constitution mandates that a Legislative Branch and a Judicial Branch also have roles to play in how that governing happens (as in “We Can’t Wait” and thumbing its nose at judicial decrees that stop it from what it wants to do (e.g., EPA, FCC, NLRB, Interior Dept; the list goes on).  Why should it – the Leviathan is here and has figured out that it has sufficient power and leverage on its own to act as the Progressive end game – The Administrative State.

Yeah, such a great thing, that bipartisanship that has governed seemingly with only lip service to the words of the Constitution (and almost zip with its underlying philosophy) in dealing with a limited government (e.g., Nancy Pelosi’s outburst of “Are you serious?”).    I also note that the Founders did not set out to make a government that only worked from the middle – their intent was to deliberately make it hard to get anything done if an idea was not that substantial or important enough (leaving aside for the moment, those items that are highly urgent but totally stupid which seem to crawl through DC’s Halls of Power on a too frequent basis).

I also note that it seems that Congress no longer deals with “Big issues of significant national concern” – for instance,  the Senate has refused to take up and pass an actual budget (something that ALL in Congress should wish to do to set the nation’s priorities) for over three years.  Instead actually dealing with national issues as it should, it shows its true focus  is now only actually “playing small ball” as it takes up such a ludicrous (from what I see as real Congressional purposes) issue of whether or not a pro-baseball player was using steroids.

 …Unfortunately, just the opposite is happening. The House keeps putting up ideas but they are couched purely in partisan terms and rhetoric; the Senate cannot reach consensus; the president has disappeared.

Most Americans want a government that works. Partisanship cannot fulfill this need in the end because it cannot lead to effective governance in our constitutional system.

The American people understand this, which is why their level of frustration with Washington is so high right now. Many members of Congress, to be fair, understand this too.

Yes, reelection is important. But what is the point, if you do not govern once you get there?

I disagree with the premise that the current stalemate is a bug – it IS a feature at this point.  It is time to say “this far and no farther – we’ve gone WAY to far as it is!”  This is the reason why the TEA Party came into existence and why the election of 2010 was such a wipeout of the Left and center-left.  Government was certainly “working” to pass legislation but in a direction that the electorate highly disapproved.  You’re missing the signal, Judd – “working” is only goodness when it is “working” on the right stuff and achieving the right results inline with proper governance.  The electorate is trying to tell you that you’re working on the wrong stuff in the wrong direction at the wrong time – but you aren’t listening!

The last 75 years has seen an incremental but drastic increase in the size, cost, reach, and intrusion of the Federal Government.  The TEA Party movement realized that Government at all levels, but especially at the Federal level, might be working according to Judd’s definition (pass something, anything, to show we’re doing something), but it isn’t working according to the Founders intent.  It has to work to make itself smaller, less costly, and allow private Society to recapture the role it once had before Big Government crowded it out.  But what is the point, if you govern out of control, at cross-odds to Constitutional philosophy, once you get there, as the Democrats now wish to?  Or, to lay equal blame on what the Republicans are doing, allowing it to happen in the name of civility and collegiality?  This muddleheaded middle has built this high cliff and unless it is stopped, it will calmly, collegially and civilly step off that cliff into financial ruin (and the rest of us with them).

We are at a crossroads in which philosophy is going to govern this country going forward – are we going to be governed by our Founders and the original philosophy set down in the Declaration and Constitution with emphasis on self-reliance, hard work, a virtuous people that self-govern, or are we going to allow ourselves to devolve to the Administrative Marxist / Socialist state where only the elite are allowed to make decisions on how we are to live and that the rest of us are simply the wards of the State?

In this environment, Judd seemingly is putting bipartisanship as the highest form and goal of governance;  that can only play the small ball of irrelevant stuff.  It misses the real fight – the future philosophical governance of the country.  And that, sir, is where bipartisanship should be ended and the real fight begun, out loud and bare knuckled, in the Congress.

>