(This letter was originally submitted to The Rockdale Citizen on May 11, 2011).
Dear Editor,
On May 10th, Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) unveiled a budget proposal that cuts national spending from 25% of the GDP to 18.5%. Like other plans, Toomey’s enacts restrictions on entitlement spending and healthcare reform.
As I listened to the conference, what I found interesting was not the proposal itself, but the rhetoric framing the budget debate as communicated from the Republican co-signers of the proposal. It was Toomey’s fellow Senators, Jim DeMint and Marco Rubio (of South Carolina and Florida respectively), that thanked him for his leadership on this issue.
Leadership: When it comes to the budget debate, this loaded term invokes the apparent in-action of the Obama Administration in contrast to the Republican Party’s commitment to resolve the issue.
Whenever I hear about leadership, I get a little nervous. Are the Republicans looking for leadership that seeks to balance the budget in a prudent and tempered fashion—a type of leadership that navigates through the complexity of a multi-trillion dollar system? Or are they seeking the type of leadership like that of the previous presidential Administration, in which the executive branch bullied the legislative and judicial branches?
Leadership without patience and prudence has the potential to unleash unintended and long-term consequences. The previous Administration’s costly and ill-informed unilateral attack on Iraq is just one example where lack of prudence failed to garner positive, cost-cutting results.
And there is something to be said about the Democratic Party’s inability to form a budget proposal whatsoever. Certainly, a recession makes a proposal all the more difficult; but for a party that had control of both houses of Congress, this lack of leadership is inexcusable.
Suffice it to say, budgets are more complex than some might assume. It took my wife and me days to carve out a budget on a mere five-figure income. Imagine the time it takes to do that on a trillion-dollar scale—with a “scalpel” (in the words of President Obama) at that.
When it comes to weighty matters in which an entire nation is involved, leadership with an eye towards compromise is key to bringing about positive reform. After all, the Constitution itself was born out of compromise—Remember the “Great Compromise” in which the Founding Fathers married the best of the New Jersey and Virginia plans to develop representation in Congress?
Compromise is not a sign of weakness; it’s the foundation upon which our very democracy was built.
If leadership is the problem, both parties seem to be guilty, for true leadership happens when persons of difference can sit down and produce a plan that’s in the best interest of the greatest good.
There is great concern that federal debt must be dealt with, lest the issue become a problem for our children in years to come—to quote Sen. Rubio, if there is no action, “We will be the first Americans to leave our children worse off than ourselves.”
Perhaps we should ask ourselves what kind of legacy we are leaving our children when it comes to wise governing. I’d rather model for my children healthy teamwork and conflict resolution than to pass on the anxious uncertainty inherent in partisan pontificating. Let’s pray that both parties can get their act together and get us on the road to economic stability.
Blessings,
Rev. Joe LaGuardia
Baptist Spirituality 