I keep hearing about the gridlock in Washington where a recalcitrant Republican House is unwilling to come to terms with a obdurate Democratic Senate and implacable White House.  These voices cry that the politicians are unwilling to work toward compromise.  The politicos are being painted as some kind of latter day Neros playing on their fiddles while Rome burns.  With a summary judgement that politics in our democracy simply do not work.  

I maintain that nothing could be further from the truth.  The gridlock is not the result of failure of politicians to come to a compromise but the reality that the sides are too far apart to find a middle ground.  A politician has the obligation to represent his own ideas and philosophy and the desires and interests of his constituents.  And the bald truth today is that these philosophies, desires and interests are too different to allow compromise. 

Take the issue of maintaining government expenditures at their present level ad infinitum.  Republicans oppose this for philosophical reasons and the expressed desires and interests of their constituents who oppose further deficit spending and any increase in taxation.  Democrats defend this in answer to the demands of their constituents for continued government funding of critical programs.  Republicans hold the line tightly at no new deficits or taxes.  Democrats respond by defending to the death government spending. 

As far as I can see the only solution is to have all three major components of the process, i.e. the House, the Senate and the White House, held by the same party.    I know that most will automatically resist this solution since it lessens the “checks” on the government.  But at this stage I see no other way out.  

Elect one team or the other, but elect the same team to all components of the government machinery.   Most Parliamentary governments work this way.  Maybe it is time for us to accept political reality and follow suit.