I have found the perfect job. This job carries great prestige. It pays well.
It offers amazing retirement benefits.
It affords an enormous staff to do you beckon call. It allows you to be evaluated once, every six
years. And most importantly, if you
don’t like a certain key aspect of your job, you simply don’t have to do
it. Who wouldn’t want a job like
that?
I am talking about the Majority Leader in the
United States Senate as fulfilled by Harry Reid.
In full disclosure, during my day job, I am a
process consultant. When I encounter
problems at work my first instinct is to see if there is a process problem. The key is to drill down past the symptoms
and find the root cause. If something is
not working, then the question often boils down to two alternatives: Is the
process valid and are people following the process? Is the process broken and
does it need to be changed?
There is no doubt our political process is not
working. The President and Congress
cannot reach a consensus on virtually anything to solve the pressing issues
facing our republic. The question is:
are they following the process or does the process need to be changed? Some say the government is just too big to
manage. Others say we are just too
partisan. I say that neither of those
are the root cause.
Yes the size of the government is daunting. It is complex and bureaucratic. That has been the case of every government
since the beginning of time. Besides,
what choice do we have? To say it is
unmanageable is to admit defeat. The
size of the government is not the root cause of our problem. It is just a
symptom.
The most cited symptom is that the politicians
are just too partisan. I think this too
is a red herring. Yes, it is fair to say
we are in a partisan environment. Part
of that is a good thing. We have
partisanship because the country is evenly divided on two competing political
philosophies. However, today’s
partisanship pales compared to partisanship in our past. In the past we had fist fights, duals to the
death and slander that would make your skin crawl. We have always had partisanship and the
government still worked. Partisanship is
just another symptom.
I think the root cause is the Senate’s inability
to pass a budget. The budget is the
lynch pin in the political process that focuses the resources of the federal
government. Without it, the bureaucracy
wanders aimlessly as it has for the last three years with devastating
consequences.
Harry Reid and the Senate he leads have not
passed a budget in three years! Since
taking over the House of Representatives the Republicans have passed a budget
every year. The missing step in the
process is for the Senate to pass a budget and then the two houses of Congress
to reconcile their differences. This is
hard work. It is called governing. It is part of the basic job
description.
Everyone knows that money equals power in
Washington. What is a budget? A budget is the roadmap for how to spend the
money (i.e. power). Our Founding Fathers
were brilliant when they devised the budgetary process. The reconciliation of
the people-centric budget (the House) and state-centric budget (at our founding
Senators were not elected, rather they were appointed by Governors) brought
together two different perspectives on how to spend the money (power). Once the Congress approved a budget it went
to the President for his approval or rejection. All three groups had input and
responsibility to get a budget passed and they did so for over two hundred
years.
While some things have changed (like the
election of Senators) the process still works.
The problem is Mr. Reid refuses to follow the process. The House has passed its budget. Now the Senate must do the same. The key to breaking gridlock is the work
involved in the reconciliation. Without Mr.
Reid’s budget there is nothing to reconcile so we have gridlock and the system
fails.
President Obama complains all the time about a
do nothing Congress. The problem is he is
the leader of the Democratic Party and could instruct Mr. Reid to pass a
budget. It would be hard work but it can
and must be done. After all, it is a
basic requirement for his (their) jobs.
If they don’t want to do their jobs, there are plenty of others who
would like to give it a try.
Published in the LaGrange Daily News (April 26, 2012)
