The Rebellious Congress—Washington Punts Another One Down the Road

With all the drama and tension of the debt limit ceiling debate, it took the emotion of seeing U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords comeback to the House to seal this deal.

On Monday, Rep. Giffords voted for the first time since being shot in the head at a rally this past January. Many of her House colleagues were holding back their votes as a political strategy until she voted “yes.” Her presence inspired others to stop the posturing and do their jobs.

In case you missed it, Washington D.C. has been going through a long-winded, highly partisan debate about a routine procedure of making sure the country has enough credit to pay its bills. This process is usually a yawner in any other year.

This year, however, the wild card was the newly-elected batch of Tea Party members. These new members of Congress pledged to “shake things up” by holding to their values of limited government in a way that Republicans have never seen.

I believe that all elected officials should stand by their values and commend the Tea Party members for that. When you start sounding more like a bunch of rebellious teenagers, however, the overriding principle of loving your country should not be forgotten.

Go ahead, stick to your values, but as elected officials, your job is to get things done for the country you serve. Standing with your fists clenched, refusing to budge, rebelling for the sake of rebelling is not healthy for public discourse.

So was the crisis averted? Does the rest of the world see that we can (eventually) solve our differences? Members of Congress who can only say “no” do not move us forward to fixing any problems.

This agreement between the Senate, the House and the President basically showed how they agreed to disagree for the moment. The parties involved, much like the rest of America, agreed that spending needs to be reduced. The disagreement is about how to do it.

A super committee of House and Senate members will be appointed to take a look at how to trim the budget. All the headaches of the last few months where no one could agree with anyone else will be relived. Now the real work will begin.

But why should we care? As a normal person, how could what politicians bicker about affect us?

I wish I could draw a direct link between the debt ceiling and South County. If the crisis had not been averted, the credit markets would have affected us all in one way or another. Refinancing a loan, getting one to begin with and the efficacy of local governments would have all become more difficult.

But upon further reflection, I see a whole host of political TV commercials on the horizon like you have never seen. If you thought 2008 or 2010 was annoying, you just wait. Republicans and Democrats alike are mad at the Tea Party, and they will not let you forget it.

Political commercials don’t just cause moans and groans during primetime, they say something larger about those we trust to run our government. Negative ads reveal that we should not trust anyone. If he or she is the focus of a negative ad, then they are evil. If he or she made the ad, then they are evil too.

So let’s challenge Washington to do something else revolutionary: spend your millions of dollars on reducing our national debt instead of stirring the political pot next year. All of us “normal” people out here in America are not happy with you today. Do your job. Do what’s right. We are watching what you do next.