How to Solve the Fiscal Cliff? Start With a Gag Order
How to Solve the Fiscal Cliff? Start With a Gag Order
Since election day, our polarized political parties have been sparring over the fiscal cliff in public. We’ve been treated to press conferences and campaign-style events, offers and counteroffers. The result has been very little, if any, tangible progress.
This shouldn’t be a surprise. Public discussions encourage posturing and allow die-hards to strangle compromise in its cradle. If the leaders of the parties are serious about reaching an agreement (some of their troops are not), they’ll have to shift course and enter into private, face-to-face negotiations, during which they would agree to cease tattling to the press about the transgressions of the other side. President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner will have to take the lead, as they did in the famously abortive “grand bargain” talks of 2011.
It’s understandable why both of them might be reluctant to go down this path again. Last year’s talks produced intra-party conflicts among Republicans that Boehner found hard to manage. For his part, the president reportedly believes that it was a mistake to closet himself with the Speaker and that only constant public pressure can induce the Republicans to abandon extreme positions.