Congressional Hyperpartisanship - No Way to Manage a Country

Ordinary, middle class people, solve problems every day. 

Those of us who must solve problems for our daily survival simply can't fathom how it is that Congress is quagmired in hyperpartisanship, when our nation needs cooperative problem solving.

Suppose stock portfolio managers handled our investments the way our US Congress runs our nation's budget?  We'd fire financial portfolio managers if they put our investment money in harms way.  That's exactly why obstructionists in the US Congress should be fired. Indeed, by not resolving big issues and obstructing budget initiatives, the obstructionists, led by Republicans, are putting the stock portfiolios of those who invest our money in harms way, by not resolving our nation's budget problems. Our stock market, the S&P, the Blue Chips and Nasdaq would benefit from a national budget resolution.  It would be a win-win situation, if Republicans cooperated.  Even Republican portfolio investments would benefit!
.
But, instead, Republicans demand unreasonable concessions from the hard earned safety net programs Americans invest in, namely, Medicare and Social Security, before they will facilitate a budget. 

Republicans who obstruct fiscal progress are hurting middle class people by assaulting the safety net programs we're invested in, including our faith in the US financial systems, considered sacred to GOP self help beliefs.  In other words, if Republicans facilitated, rather than obstructed, policies to balance the US budget, the country could see economic growth. In this growth, Medicare and Social Security could become secure in the process, because Congress could ask Americans to invest more into these programs to establish solvency.  Nevertheless, Republicans won't facilitate to move our nation forward because, frankly, they appear to ahve lost sight of what it's like to among the middle class.

One conservative writer went back to his roots to experience how ordianary people resolve problems.

Rod Dreher write, "Inauguration 2013: Alienation, Obama and the 'other America'", about his return to his small town in Louisiana to get in touch with how his family engages in problem solving.

Dreher lives 1,000 miles - and a world away - from the partisan politics that have paralysed Washington DC in recent years.

After living in big US cities for several years, the writer and editor for the American Conservative magazine moved back with his wife and children to the small Louisiana town where his family had lived for five generations.

In St Francisville, his family sought - and found - the support that comes from living in a tight-knit community. The desire of local people to come together, to talk and solve problems, he says, is in stark contrast to the behaviour of politicians at the national level.

Dreher says America is making the same mistakes that led to the end of the Roman Empire, meaning, the capital is too far removed from the real needs of the people in the provinces, who feel ever more alienated from their rulers.

In a personal essay, he describes to British Broacdasting (BBC) what makes a community strong. He sends a message to President Obama and Republicans in Congress: stop fighting, compromise, and act together for the good of the American people.

President Obama's relection was a decisive victory. There can be no misunderstanding or ambiguity about the outcome of the 2012 election.  In a Democracy, the candidate with the most votes wins and the nation is supposed to fall in line behind the winner.  To act otherwise is no way to manage any organization, town, government or our nation.  

Many Republican lawmkers left Washington DC as a silent snub to President Obama's relection, embarrassed, no doubt, by their boisterous claims, early on, about a "one term presidency".  Although they can get out of town, they cannot hide their obstructive ways from the American people.  

If Republicans won't work with President Obama to move our nation forward, save Medicare, and Social Security, balance the budget and  stimulate confidence in our financial systems, then they must be voted out of office.  Hyperpartisanship, that leads to obstructionism, is no way to manage a country.