The celebratory New Year’s
Eve ball drop in Times Square did not wipe away all of 2012’s political happenings,
and it did not bring about a new set of political issues. Unfortunately, the ball did not fall on
the elusive “Reset American Politics” button, and the issues that dominated the
political agenda of 2012 are still present. Politically, all that the drop signified was Congress’
shameful failure to come up with an agreement to keep America from falling off
the so-called “fiscal cliff.” Yet
another example of our “broken” Congress, the partisan gridlock that has become
so detrimental to passing legislation prevented the Democrats and Republicans
from reaching a compromise. In the
clearest way possible, this symbolizes the notion that the same issues were
carried over into the new year and with regards to American politics, 2013 is
but a continuation of 2012.
As we enter 2013 after
having narrowly escaped the end of the world just two weeks ago, we still have
troops in Afghanistan and talk of gun control legislation is still
imperative. For everybody, higher
education is still way too expensive and for the underprivileged, education isn’t
close to where it needs to be. The
harmful affects of climate change are still, for the most part, unaddressed and
many elected officials do not even believe that global warming exists (which is
an issue in and of itself).
The bet way to overcome
the above issues would be to decrease the amount of partisanship in Congress
and the politics of this country in general. That statement has been said in virtually every political
article over the past few years and I think that most, if not all, people would
agree with it. Why then, do
Republicans in Congress continue to be intransigent when it comes to virtually
every issue that passes through the legislative branch? The House of Representatives, under the
leadership of Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, couldn’t even come
together to vote on legislation to give 60 billion dollars in aid to the states
and victims affected by Hurricane Sandy.
Even Chris Christie, previously the “golden child” of the Republican
Party, called out his own party’s leaders on this failure.
If for some crazy reason
I was in the position to advise President Obama, I would beg him to stop being
so complacent and giving in to the GOP on hugely important issues. I wish he would stop calling the
passing of the fiscal compromise a “victory,” when at least personally, I don’t
see a tax increase for those with incomes above $450,000 as much of a
victory. Is it a start? Yes. But it’s not close to sufficient and convincing the American
people that it is will only make his job these next four years harder.
