John Boehner, Tip O'Neill, Ronald Reagan and a Swamp
Some years ago I was on an airplane coming back from Barcelona where my girlfriend at the time and I had spent about ten days in the driving rain. She had a meeting so I was going to have lots of time to explore a beautiful city (especially the artist I had always been fascinated with, Gaudi') and Citicorp was going to pay for everything... then the monsoons came and it rained literally the entire time we were there. Gaudi' and I got really, really wet.
But anyway, on that plane I was reading and finishing the best book I ever read, David McCullough's biography of John Adams. McCullough has the ability to write history as a novel and the entire book had me riveted. I remember being quite sad it was ending.
The fact that I loved this book was strange, really, since Adams became quite the enemy of my hero Thomas Jefferson. Yet what I loved about the book was how McCullough so beautifully explained the power of the early American world and the men and women that made it. (We know, of course, that at that time, it was men who made everything; but McCullough did a masterful job of explaining just how important Abigail Adams was to John, and subsequently the new Republic.)
Recently Jon Meacham has matched it (not topped it) with his biography Thomas Jefferson: the Art of Power. Cut from the same cloth as the Adams book, this too reads like a novel and discusses my hero warts and all with a clear bias on the hero side. Meacham's book is so good I'm re-reading it already having broken my "have to wait five years to re-read a book" rule...
Last night sitting in the Peace Garden smoking a cigar and drinking a glass of wine, I got to the story of Jefferson and Hamilton and the early government. Since I know my readers are very intelligent I won't bore you with the whole history but suffice it to say that our government had many incredible characters during its beginning but none were more opposite than Hamilton ('the bastard monarchist, as we Jeffersonians like to call him) and Jefferson (the architect, heart and mind of the revolution and the new government as all right minded people should call him). To really simplify things Hamilton saw the need for strong central government with even some elements of lifetime office thrown in (there was a large contingent of leaders who believed Washington should be made President for life), Jefferson believed as Thoreau would someday articulate and Jefferson would someday be incorrectly given credit for saying, that 'government governs best which governs least' and he was deathly afraid that English royal thinking would invade the American experiment.
You still with me?
Anyway this got me to thinking about how dysfunctional our government has become and how if our government in the 1770s had been run by the Boehner's, Obama's, Cruz's, Reid's and Christies of the world we'd all still have British accents and slavery would be alive and well.
Which leads me to talk about Tip O'Neill, Ronald Reagan and the swamp...
You see the Jefferson/Hamilton section of Meacham's book was about how the capitol of the US ended up in a swamp we now call the District of Columbia.
Hamilton was looking for a central bank. That meant the Federal Government would have to assume the debts of the states (after the Revolution) and begin to tax people to pay for its operation. This disturbed Jefferson who felt it was a slippery slope from a taxing and strong central government to a monarchy.
But Jefferson was a politician too. One night he literally met Hamilton outside of George Washington's house in New York where the government was based at the time. Meacham tells us Hamilton, who had experienced a series of political setbacks in his effort to create the central bank, looked haggard and tired and even his clothes were dirty when he bumped into the architect, heart and mind of the revolution and government (sorry) on the street.
They began to speak civilly (see where I'm going with this?) and essentially struck an informal deal about the debt and the federal government taxing to pay for it in exchange for something Jefferson wanted-the capitol of the new republic in the south.
To consummate the deal Jefferson held a dinner party (yea, sure that happens a lot now in Washington, people from opposite sides of the aisle sharing a cheeseburger). With Madison present they struck a deal (over a large amount of port, I'm sure) that Madison (who lead the opposition in the congress) would support assumption if Hamilton would support having the capitol established in the south on donated land from Maryland and Virginia.
Done deal. And then they stuck to their commitment and implemented it.
This form of compromise and decision making didn't end during the Washington presidency. In fact until recently it was the way things were done, it's what made our democracy work.
During the Reagan presidency the House was lead with an iron fist by Tip O'Neill, the Massachusetts representative who famously said 'all politics is local,' (sic). O'Neill and Reagan fought like cats and dogs and had diametrically opposed views on almost everything. But they got things done (including, I would like to remind my conservative friends, twelve different tax increases that O'Neill got passed and Reagan signed... so much for the myth about Reagan being the forerunner of aTea Party Republican). They got things done over a beer and conversation. They talked about what each needed and they provided it so the government could function and the world could go on.
Just like Hamilton and Jefferson.
And not like John Boehner, Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Ted Cruz.
Today only the extremes get a politician noticed and in many cases elected. As I have written before in this blog, both sides of the aisle are beholden to interests that they have to pander to to get nominations and eventually elected. And they don't give a damn if someone suffers or not, if something gets done or not as long as their interests are met.
I would love to see some reasonable people from both sides of the aisle get together and decide enough is enough. (The Republican Party is beginning to do that now in aggressively defending incumbents and traditional Republicans from the far right.). But why can't those in government do that? Deep down every single one of them knows when they are selling us out for personal gain. Can't they once in a while put the people first?
I guess I long for the Democratic Party of Jefferson and Madison and Clinton and Johnson and the Republican Party of Adams and Hamilton and Reagan and Dole.
Or perhaps what I'm asking for is the election of someone like our last liberal President, Richard Nixon ... yea, liberal. Yea, Nixon. Nixon introduced the first national health insurance bill. Nixon introduced the first real immigration reform in our lifetime. Nixon opened the world and us to China. And I long for the last moderate Democratic President, Bill Clinton who ended welfare as we knew it and balanced the budget.
They did those things because in those days Republicans stood for things instead of only opposing them and Democrats realized a runaway government wasn't a good thing.
Will it happen? Not a chance during the rest of my lifetime. Especially with a Supreme Court that says things like corporations are people too and there should be no control over how much money is spent on whatever candidate. Not so long as the Soros' and Koch's of the world are out there buying candidates and elections.
I'm going back to my book where I can live in an era I would have enjoyed living in (except when I had to go the dentist).
But anyway, on that plane I was reading and finishing the best book I ever read, David McCullough's biography of John Adams. McCullough has the ability to write history as a novel and the entire book had me riveted. I remember being quite sad it was ending.
The fact that I loved this book was strange, really, since Adams became quite the enemy of my hero Thomas Jefferson. Yet what I loved about the book was how McCullough so beautifully explained the power of the early American world and the men and women that made it. (We know, of course, that at that time, it was men who made everything; but McCullough did a masterful job of explaining just how important Abigail Adams was to John, and subsequently the new Republic.)
Recently Jon Meacham has matched it (not topped it) with his biography Thomas Jefferson: the Art of Power. Cut from the same cloth as the Adams book, this too reads like a novel and discusses my hero warts and all with a clear bias on the hero side. Meacham's book is so good I'm re-reading it already having broken my "have to wait five years to re-read a book" rule...
Last night sitting in the Peace Garden smoking a cigar and drinking a glass of wine, I got to the story of Jefferson and Hamilton and the early government. Since I know my readers are very intelligent I won't bore you with the whole history but suffice it to say that our government had many incredible characters during its beginning but none were more opposite than Hamilton ('the bastard monarchist, as we Jeffersonians like to call him) and Jefferson (the architect, heart and mind of the revolution and the new government as all right minded people should call him). To really simplify things Hamilton saw the need for strong central government with even some elements of lifetime office thrown in (there was a large contingent of leaders who believed Washington should be made President for life), Jefferson believed as Thoreau would someday articulate and Jefferson would someday be incorrectly given credit for saying, that 'government governs best which governs least' and he was deathly afraid that English royal thinking would invade the American experiment.
You still with me?
Anyway this got me to thinking about how dysfunctional our government has become and how if our government in the 1770s had been run by the Boehner's, Obama's, Cruz's, Reid's and Christies of the world we'd all still have British accents and slavery would be alive and well.
Which leads me to talk about Tip O'Neill, Ronald Reagan and the swamp...
You see the Jefferson/Hamilton section of Meacham's book was about how the capitol of the US ended up in a swamp we now call the District of Columbia.
Hamilton was looking for a central bank. That meant the Federal Government would have to assume the debts of the states (after the Revolution) and begin to tax people to pay for its operation. This disturbed Jefferson who felt it was a slippery slope from a taxing and strong central government to a monarchy.
But Jefferson was a politician too. One night he literally met Hamilton outside of George Washington's house in New York where the government was based at the time. Meacham tells us Hamilton, who had experienced a series of political setbacks in his effort to create the central bank, looked haggard and tired and even his clothes were dirty when he bumped into the architect, heart and mind of the revolution and government (sorry) on the street.
They began to speak civilly (see where I'm going with this?) and essentially struck an informal deal about the debt and the federal government taxing to pay for it in exchange for something Jefferson wanted-the capitol of the new republic in the south.
To consummate the deal Jefferson held a dinner party (yea, sure that happens a lot now in Washington, people from opposite sides of the aisle sharing a cheeseburger). With Madison present they struck a deal (over a large amount of port, I'm sure) that Madison (who lead the opposition in the congress) would support assumption if Hamilton would support having the capitol established in the south on donated land from Maryland and Virginia.
Done deal. And then they stuck to their commitment and implemented it.
This form of compromise and decision making didn't end during the Washington presidency. In fact until recently it was the way things were done, it's what made our democracy work.
During the Reagan presidency the House was lead with an iron fist by Tip O'Neill, the Massachusetts representative who famously said 'all politics is local,' (sic). O'Neill and Reagan fought like cats and dogs and had diametrically opposed views on almost everything. But they got things done (including, I would like to remind my conservative friends, twelve different tax increases that O'Neill got passed and Reagan signed... so much for the myth about Reagan being the forerunner of aTea Party Republican). They got things done over a beer and conversation. They talked about what each needed and they provided it so the government could function and the world could go on.
Just like Hamilton and Jefferson.
And not like John Boehner, Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Ted Cruz.
Today only the extremes get a politician noticed and in many cases elected. As I have written before in this blog, both sides of the aisle are beholden to interests that they have to pander to to get nominations and eventually elected. And they don't give a damn if someone suffers or not, if something gets done or not as long as their interests are met.
I would love to see some reasonable people from both sides of the aisle get together and decide enough is enough. (The Republican Party is beginning to do that now in aggressively defending incumbents and traditional Republicans from the far right.). But why can't those in government do that? Deep down every single one of them knows when they are selling us out for personal gain. Can't they once in a while put the people first?
I guess I long for the Democratic Party of Jefferson and Madison and Clinton and Johnson and the Republican Party of Adams and Hamilton and Reagan and Dole.
Or perhaps what I'm asking for is the election of someone like our last liberal President, Richard Nixon ... yea, liberal. Yea, Nixon. Nixon introduced the first national health insurance bill. Nixon introduced the first real immigration reform in our lifetime. Nixon opened the world and us to China. And I long for the last moderate Democratic President, Bill Clinton who ended welfare as we knew it and balanced the budget.
They did those things because in those days Republicans stood for things instead of only opposing them and Democrats realized a runaway government wasn't a good thing.
Will it happen? Not a chance during the rest of my lifetime. Especially with a Supreme Court that says things like corporations are people too and there should be no control over how much money is spent on whatever candidate. Not so long as the Soros' and Koch's of the world are out there buying candidates and elections.
I'm going back to my book where I can live in an era I would have enjoyed living in (except when I had to go the dentist).
Nixon may have done some things liberals support, but he was hardly a liberal. And the welfare reform legislation Clinton signed was a major injustice to the poor. It has continued to cause untold hardship to millions. Clinton may have "ended welfare as we knew it," but that's nothing to be nostalgic about.
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