Washington Post
(Editorial)
October 21, 2015
INSTEAD
OF adding his name to the already long list of people running for
president, Vice President Biden pleaded Wednesday for something the
country has in desperately
short supply: functional, cooperative government. “I don’t think we
should look at Republicans as our enemies,” Mr. Biden said. “For the
sake of the country, we have to work together. . . . Four more years of
this kind of pitched battle may be more than this
country can take.”
Mr.
Biden’s comments were an implicit criticism of Hillary Clinton, who
offhandedly styled Republicans as her enemies during last week’s
Democratic debate. But his message
was double-edged: In order for Democrats to work with Republicans,
Republicans have to be willing to cooperate. Even with Rep. Paul Ryan
(R-Wis.) on the rise, the GOP still doesn’t appear to accept the
realities of governing in a pluralistic democracy.
As
Mr. Biden delivered his remarks Wednesday, Mr. Ryan was meeting with
Republicans across Capitol Hill. The previous evening, he issued a
demand: In return for accepting
the top job in the House, Mr. Ryan insisted he get widespread support
in the GOP caucus and that lawmakers agree to a rules change making it
harder to oust the speaker. “It is our duty to make the tough decisions
this country needs to get back on track,” he
said, promising “results.”
Yet
Mr. Ryan didn’t tell his caucus what he would really need from it to
make the tough decisions the country requires. The nation faces national
default and disgrace
next month if Congress fails to raise the debt limit. Even if Speaker
John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) forced through an increase before Mr. Ryan took
over, the issue would come up again. Mr. Ryan did not mention this
crucial issue, even obliquely. Nor did he mention
the ruinously foolish budget caps that have shortchanged defense and
domestic spending, nor the seemingly constant threat of government
shutdown over hot-button side issues.
Whoever
leads the GOP in Congress must be clear: Republicans can nudge the
country in the direction they want to go, but they can’t drag it kicking
and screaming. If a
legislative deal leans 60 percent in the GOP’s direction and avoids the
threat of default or shutdown, that is a Republican victory. Declining
to take the country’s full faith and credit hostage is not weakness, it
is wisdom. Toughness means taking votes that
the bloviators on talk radio will not like, not just those that pass a
conservative purity test.
Mr.
Ryan has shown he appreciates these points. As elements of the
perpetually outraged right wing have pointed out, he voted for the
Troubled Asset Relief Program when
the economy depended on it. He worked with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.)
to craft a compromise budget that, while deeply imperfect, gave the
country a rest from near-constant budget acrimony. Though his position
isn’t crystal clear, he has supported the sort
of comprehensive immigration reform that most Americans favor and that
the country requires.
“It’s
not too late to save the American idea,” Mr. Ryan said Tuesday, “but we
are running out of time.” As much as anything else, the American idea
is that a religiously,
ethnically, ideologically diverse group of people can govern themselves
through common allegiance to a political system that requires
compromise. A powerful bloc in Congress’s majority party refuses to
accept this idea, and the fuse on national default is
burning low. If Mr. Ryan is to be an effective speaker, he must be
clearer about what true GOP leadership would look like.
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