Bring Us Together!

I believe the main problem we face in America in this election year is not the economy, as important as that is. It is not Obamacare, as hot-button as that issue remains. It is not the budget, or taxes, or the federal debt, though all those are important. It is, rather, that Americans stand farther apart from one another than I can ever remember. We are a deeply divided nation. We need someone or something to bring us together.

Red vs. blue. Left vs. right. Rich vs. middle class. Citizens vs. immigrants, especially illegals. Social liberals vs. traditionalists. Straights vs. gays. Big government vs. small. The prerogatives of whites vs. the aspirations of nonwhites. These are political divides that have long existed — and there is nothing inherently wrong with them, until they become so fixed and hardened in place that no one is willing to compromise for the common good.

I think the principal reason the bishops in the Catholic Church are wrong to dig in their heels over the contraception mandate portion of Obamacare is that doing so divides rather than heals. If the bishops got their way, the employees of Catholic-run institutions would not be given contraception coverage in their health plans ... though other, similar, non-sectarian workers would. It would create yet another division in America, a nation in which vast majorities of women, Catholic and non-Catholic, use some form of contraception, at some point in their lives.

The bishops' stance is emblematic of all the inflexible stances being taken today. Republicans take a pledge never to raise taxes, no matter what. Democrats in control of the Senate won't advance any bill passed by the Republican House, no matter what.

When the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare, at first liberals cheered, but the cheering died down when they realized that the deciding vote cast by Chief Justice Roberts did not uphold the rationale they favored: that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution should be interpreted broadly enough to justify the individual mandate, all by itself. Roberts instead called the penalty that those lacking health coverage must pay a "tax," which he said was within Congress's legitimate power to levy. Conservatives were unhappy at Roberts's side-switching to the extent that they are now even more earnestly pledging to do the impossible: repeal Obamacare.

Both sides are being ridiculous.

The individual mandate, which applies to anyone who lacks health insurance, is a prod to those who are in good health and have few doctor bills, who would otherwise be just as happy not to buy insurance, and who don't get insurance from their employer. They must now buy it on a state-run exchange or pay ... a tax. The upshot will be that their premiums will pour into the insurance fund that pays the medical bills of the ill and formerly uninsurable. It's an idea that was originally put forth by conservatives who wished to block liberals' efforts to enact a single-payer healthcare system, sometimes called "Medicare for everybody."

When Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he enacted an individual mandate at the state level. It was at that time acceptable in conservative circles to do that.

That was then. This is now.

When true believers hold so fast to principle that we all end up being driven further apart, rather than brought together, I say that principle has to yield. But that's not what's happening today.

In my opinion, President Obama has been notably flexible during his presidency. He has not been the "socialist" his opponents claim ... far from it. For example, he changed the original contraception mandate to allow the cost of that coverage to be borne by insurers themselves, rather than by the Church. Though he has temporarily blocked the Keystone XL pipeline, he has allowed oil exploration in Alaska's Chukchi and Beaufort seas. At times, it is true, he has moved in a decidedly progressive direction, rather than a conservative one, as when he came out in favor of gay marriage. But all in all, he has tried to strike a balance.

What does he get for it? Increased intransigence on the right.

We need to get the federal deficit under control, no? But Republicans won't raise income tax rates. So trimming the deficit would have to be done by expenditure cuts ... possibly in addition to vague suggestions about "tax reform" that would (if they could be enacted) eliminate certain tax deductions. Forced expenditure cuts across the board are due to happen this coming January 1, as is the end of the "Bush tax cuts." No one wants us to go over that fiscal "cliff" — it would boost taxes on the middle class, which Democrats hate, while cutting military outlays, which Republicans hate — but no one is putting forth credible alternatives.

Again, both sides are being ridiculous.

The Right Wing

But I believe the right wing, both religious and secular, is being more ridiculous than the left.

When Obama won in 2008 by a large margin over Senator John McCain, as a liberal I began licking my chops. My party controlled not only the White House but also both the Senate and the House — the Senate by virtue of a 60-vote supermajority. In his first year as president, Obama sent to Capitol Hill his Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) ... and in town meetings all over, people came out of the woodwork to call it "socialist medicine." The Tea Party was born. Obama likewise supported, if tepidly, a House-passed measure to set up a "cap and trade" system for carbon emissions, the prime mover in global warming.

Then Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, died, and a special election saw Scott Brown, a moderate Republican, take his seat. The insuperable 60 votes the Democrats could muster to overcome a filibuster had become 59. It became impossible to get "cap and trade" — another regulatory mechanism, once favored by conservatives, that they have now disavowed — through the Senate. PPACA was passed, without a single GOP vote, only by some fancy legislative footwork in the Senate — and Republicans immediately starting working to get it declared unconstitutional.

I'd be wrong about the GOP being the more intransigent of the two parties if it weren't the case that both the individual mandate and cap and trade weren't originally conservatives' own policy suggestions.

But never mind. The overarching point is that everyone has dug ideological trenches and is doing nothing but lobbing mortars back and forth. This has got to stop. And it won't stop until some real grownups step forth and say it must. How about you, President Obama? How about you, Mitt Romney? How about you, Catholic bishops?

Please ... bring us together!