The Myth of Partisan Gridlock by Robert Kuttner (American Prospect)

[liberalpragmatist]

We don’t have two parties at loggerheads. We have one party of moderates and one of extremists.

By Robert Kuttner

As columnist David Broder has written, "Washington has become such a partisan cockpit, with constant sniping between the parties on Capitol Hill and gridlock in the House and Senate."

The voters have to be sick of partisan wrangling and worried about unsolved national ills. But everything else about this fable is wrong.

For starters, one party has indeed been captured by extremists, but the other one has moved steadily toward the center.

<snip>

Pre-Bush, genuine bipartisanship was common. One example was Clinton's welfare reform. Another was the 1983 Greenspan Commission, which rescued Social Security. President Ronald Reagan, unlike Bush, appointed leaders from both parties who shared a commitment to saving the program. Republicans accepted a modest tax increase. Democrats accepted modest benefit cuts. The program gained 70 years of fiscal health.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=9014

[stray cat]

1. Finally someone gets it.

Many republican politicians have more in common with democrats than their extremist fundamentalists and neocons.