Is Bipartisan Policy Making a Miracle?
Don’t be sad, sweet friends, of my wrinkled forehead; I live in peace with Men and at war with my entrails. (Antonio Machado Poem XXIII)
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation sent eight “Experts” a request for their Views:
“EXPERT VIEWS
Bipartisan Policymaking under Divided Government
As Washington faces closely divided government, the nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation is convening respected policy experts to help break the gridlock. This set of eight new essays highlights a range of ideas on how to make progress on key fiscal and economic goals. The authors include leaders from across the political spectrum, offering historical context and practical advice to help lawmakers rise above the politics to make bipartisan progress.”
Questions:
“What is your advice for the Administration and Congress on how policymakers can rise above gridlock, and work across party lines to make progress on America’s pressing fiscal and economic challenges?
What opportunities exist to address key economic policy goals, including combating high inflation while avoiding a recession, addressing our $31 trillion and growing national debt, stabilizing critical programs like Medicare and Social Security, and achieving more widely shared economic opportunity?
What are the potential areas for lawmakers to find common ground and avoid economic damage from self-inflicted political crises?
What lessons can be learned from previous instances of divided government about policy tradeoffs by each side to achieve durable legislation that improves our fiscal and economic future?”
The questions being asked have little to do with the realities “the people” live day in and day out.
The biggest fact is that TODAY — THE GOVERNMENT IS THE LARGEST CORPORATION IN THE LAND. THEIR BEHAVIOR IS EXACTLY THE BEHAVIOR OF A CORPORATION.
As Russell Ackoff once said about corporations is TRUE about GOVERNMENT:
“Most large social systems are pursuing objectives other than the ones they proclaim, and the ones they pursue are wrong. They try to do the wrong thing righter, and this makes what they do wronger. It is much better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right because when errors are corrected, it makes doing the wrong thing wronger but the right thing righter. Examples:
1. The healthcare system of the United States is not a healthcare system; it is a sickness and disability-care sub-system.
2. The educational system is not dedicated to producing learning by students but teaching by teachers — and teaching is a major obstruction to learning. A student once asked me in what year I had last taught a class on a subject that existed when I was a student. A great question. After some thought, I told him 1951. “Boy,” he said, “you must be a good learner. What a pity you can’t teach as well as you can learn.” He had it right.
3. The principal function of most corporations is not to maximize shareholder value but to maximize the standard of living and quality of work life of those who manage the corporation. Providing the shareholders with a return on their investments is a requirement, not an objective. As Peter Drucker observed, profit is to a corporation as oxygen is to a human being: necessary for existence, not the reason for it. A corporation that fails to provide an adequate return for its investment to its employees and customers is just as likely to fail as one that does not reward its shareholders adequately. The most valuable and least replaceable resource is time. Without the time of employees, money can produce nothing. Employees have a much larger investment in most corporations than their shareholders. Corporations should be maximizing stakeholder, not shareholder, value to employees, customers, and shareholders.”
A “modified” Antonio Machado Poem XXI:
“Yesterday, I dreamed that I saw The Government and that the Government would speak; I dreamed that the Government could hear me… Afterward, I dreamed that I dreamt.”
As Antonio Machado said in his poem XXVII:
“Where is the utility of our utilities? Let’s return to the Truth: Vanity of Vanities.”
Like with the sea of Government, WE, the Citizens, have two battles to fight. Antonio Machado Poem XXVIII:
“All men have two battles to fight: in dreams, he fights with God; and Awake, with the sea.”