Political Gridlock

The votes have been cast and the nation has spoken. Once again, our nation has rejected single party rule and brought Washington basically to a stalemate beginning in January 2011. The Democrats still control the oval office and have a slight majority in the Senate while the Republicans scored a historic victory in the House of Representatives gaining 60+ seats and a substantial working majority. So what will this mean for our nation?

Well, if history is any indicator, this could be a good thing. I, along with many people, am completely fed up with business as usual regarding our federal government. Some Republicans are now claiming they have a mandate for change based upon last nights election results, just as Democrats did after the 2008 and 2006 elections and Republicans in the 2004 and 2002 elections. What I believe this type of swing really shows is that Americans are not fully comfortable with either party having full control of all 3 branches of our legislative government.

The simple truth is, gridlock, a condition that means neither political party will move forward major legislative change without cooperation from the other side, is a good thing for us as citizens. While we will see many fresh faces from the Republican side in Washington, history tells us it will not take long for some of them to blend right in with the Washington way of doing things. And the Washington way of doing things is broken.

Our federal government has exploded and is bloated beyond anything the founding fathers would recognize. It's tentacles have reached in to parts of our lives we never conceived it could. Our national debt is 13 trillion dollars and revenues are down. In large part this is because either one side of the isle or the other has been in functional control of the government for the past 10 years. Gridlock will change that.

The less our federal government can legislate, the better for us. What this really means is that escape from this current economic malaise will be placed upon the shoulders of American business, ingenuity and people, and not our government. That is a very good thing! Government by and large inhibits financial growth, it does not help it.

So will the Republicans remain humble, accepting their share of the blame, when our national debt grew at record levels in the last 4 years of the Bush administration? Will they follow through on their promises to extend tax cuts and limit spending? Will Democrats acknowledge that they have reached to far with these far reaching government programs and return to the center? History says they will say the right words, but little actual compromise will be reached. And that means gridlock, and little if anything getting done. Hooray for gridlock! It's the best thing that could have happened for us the American people!