Since we have been arguing on this forum forever I was wondering if there are any issues that everyone can agree we need to get behind. If there are, are there any issues that we can all get behind that are more important that the issues we all like to argue about? I would prefer to leave political personalities out of this discussion. There are plenty of threads where we can argue about who is the bigger scumbag in politics. A couple of issues I think might be something everyone can agree on are: Term limits. - I don't believe that our system was designed to be run by career politicians. The corruption that is cause by Lobbying money. - I know our system was not designed to be run by corporate interests. Are there any others? Discuss.
Those are good ideas, but in the trenches, it seems what unites both parties here is lukewarm actual interest behind closed doors. We are asking a bunch of older people who have made careers of DC politics, using lobbyist money and connections at every step, to change the fundamental nature of their lives. I just don't see much of a way forward without a major perturbation (economic catastrophe, major political upheaval, or similar). There might be a central and logical path to immigration reform, once the election posturing/insanity has cooled down. It seems there are some decent and centrist ideas for simplifying the tax code as well. At least some basic tweaks that could win bipartisan support. It's sad in that there used to be a bunch of bipartisan issues, like education. But that was long ago.
Running surpluses instead of deficits, and eventually reducing the debt. -Liberals won't cut spending. -Conservatives and libertarians won't raise taxes.
The drug war and gambling should be bipartisan issues, liberals because doing away with these programs would be the progressive position and conservatives because of the unnecessary and pervasive intrusion of the government into our daily lives.
The odd side effect of this is one that should give everyone pause. When politicians are term limited, the people who end up getting more power are career bureaucrats, who end up with all of the institutional knowledge. As observed by B-Bob, this one is going to be difficult to solve absent a large upheaval. In the wake of Citizens United, it may even take a constitutional amendment, a very high bar in light of the polarization of the parties and the electorate over the last 40 years or so. Honestly, it would likely only happen if championed by Republicans since Democrats have shown the ability to work across the aisle in recent years as opposed to Republicans whose knees reflexively jerk this way and that every time any Democrat proposes anything, no matter how reasonable.
Yep, nobody seems to understand that it will take the combination of spending cuts and higher taxes to balance the budget, just like we did after WWII.
I don't agree on term limits for Congress, I actually believe power is distributed enough between 100 and 435 members with competing regional and industrial interests. I'm not entirely sure I even agree on term limits for the Presidency, but once the military grew and sustained to the point that it could take over other countries at whim, both FDR and Eisenhower could have become dictators.
If you want less lobbying then give companies no reason to lobby. You give the federal government so much control over companies and throw around billions in subsidies and are surprised when companies lobby? As long as this continues to be the case, lobbying wont stop. Free markets mean no reason to lobby. Citizens United has nothing to do with it. The case was about a non-profit organization who made a movie saying Hillary sux. oh the horror. And how the hell are liberals gonna complain about lobbying and love this man: Spoiler
Nobody cuts spending. If you look at a trend over time of spending you can't tell what party is in control. So far I think everyone has agreed that the money in politics is a problem and especially when the Lobby is actually writing the legislation. Like B-Bob said, we are asking these politicians who have made a career of this to change the way they live. It is much like asking them to use have the same health care plan as the rest of us. Why would they do that except for the fact that it is what the American people want. Americans want the money out of politics. What the American people want is not enough of a concern to these politicians. They are more concerned with how they can raise enough money to make commercials about how crappy the other guy is. How can we get this type of change done that would be approved by 99% of our population?
The problem I see is that these guys start out(most of em) with good intentions to help lead our country to a better place. The longer they are in there the more they become institutionalized(for lack of a better word) they start to realize that the job they took is more about raising money than legislating anything and that actually doing something helpful to our nation could be risky in getting re-elected. I guess I don't understand the reasoning behind any politician needing to be in office for more that 8-10 years? and lots of it
Fighting terrorism SHOULD be a bipartisan issue, but both sides have turned it into a gun control issue. Libs think the solution is no guns, conservatives think the solution is everyone with guns. As usual, the answer is somewhere in the middle - where no one wants to go.
This is nonsense. No one said the solution is "no guns." This is such a stupid fallacy that gun control somehow equates to a prohibition on firearms. One bill asked for universal background checks while the other asked for a ban on sales to anyone on the terror watch list. Those are greatly limited in scope in comparison to what any other country has done with regards to firearm legislation. There was also an amendment to lift the ban on CDC research around gun violence (which even the original Republican sponsor of the bill now supports repealing) and that too failed. The proposals that were voted on were incredibly modest. If you honestly think that what was voted on yesterday wasn't "in the middle" then this country can't honestly can't have a debate on guns anymore because there is no middle if the bills that the Democrats put up are considered unreasonable.
I think the problem here is that terrorism and gun control should not be discussed as if they are the same issue. Terrorism is going to happen with or without guns.
Looks like the answer is no. If there was real bipartisan agreement on an issue, the issue wouldn't be an issue anymore. We have broad bipartisan agreement that slavery should be outlawed. And it is. And nobody's brought that one up in this thread yet because it's not an issue and most everyone agrees. If there is an issue that is remotely relevant, you can bet your ass that a significant group of people disagree. Term limits? No. I think we're better served by professional politicians. Lobbying? No. I do want to keep corporate money out of politics, but I also think it is important that corporations are still able to advocate their positions for legislation and regulation. Meanwhile, there's obviously people who see corporations as organizations of people who should be guaranteed the right to express themselves via their political donations, which I don't agree with. No agreement there. Immigration, tax reform, education, etc -- I'm sure there can be broad bipartisan agreement that certain end goals are clearly the right goals, but we'll still totally disagree on how to get there. So, no you will not find a bipartisan issue, even without the politicians getting in the way.
Would you mind letting us know what the advantage to having a professional politician is? All I see is people who move further and further from the realities of life in the real world and into a place where the people they represent are just a group of statistics to be manipulated for future elections that need to be paid for by special interest groups. This makes perfect sense if your goal is to be an elected politician for your entire career and you want to keep your job. With term limits, knowing you are there to help improve our society then you can focus on that knowing that your time on the hill is short and you have to get things done now. I don't think corporations should have any more influence over or access to politicians through money than the general public. This concept goes hand in hand with term limits because these politicians need to raise so much money to get reelected that they have to be in somebodies pocket to have a chance.
I think y'all mean non-bipartisan. The one bipartisan issue is to keep everything a bipartisan issue.
I agree with that. divided we fall... more correctly, a divided people keeps the establishment in power.