Wanted in Washington: Leadership

What is Washingtonspeak for "putting off a problem"?

Appointing a task force.

The Obama administration has just played this well-worn political hand, allegedly to "solve our long term fiscal challenge" and get the spiraling budget deficit under some semblance of control.

The American people can be forgiven if they are not doing cartwheels and declaring an end to budget deficits in our time, for they have seen this show before.

They know, for instance, that no "panel" or "task force" is needed to understand one of the most basic of accounting principles - that in order to maintain financial solvency, you can't spend more than you take in.

They also suspect, correctly, that the strategy for fixing the nation's budget crisis is as simple as it is impossible.

Simple, because only a combination of equally shared taxes and dramatic spending cuts are going to be necessary in order to bring the budget back under control.

Impossible, because they also understand that the largest slices of the federal budget consist of "fourth rail" entitlements that amount to political suicide for any politician who dares suggest curtailing program benefits or, egads, replacing the government entitlement with a free-market solution.

The people are convinced that their congressional representives are addicted to power instead of focused on genuine problem-solving, so they don't expect any serious effort to be made to curb the out-of-control growth of the federal budget, the president's new "task force" proposal notwithstanding.

Worse, Americans see an administration and congressional majority that, in the midst of our second-worst financial crisis ever, wants to spend even more debt-ridden money by creating a huge new healthcare entitlement bureaucracy, in spite of majority opposition among the people.

They view the president's "new commitment" to "fiscal responsibility" as nothing more than a stereotypical political delaying tactic meant only to carry his party through the next election cycle without shedding too much of its own blood.

And they see nothing in Congress' behavior over the past generation to convince them otherwise.

Americans believe they are about to be treated to another round of political theater, which would play out something like this: Sometime next year after the fall elections, this task force will indeed produce a set of "recommendations" to reduce the federal budget, but none of them - or, at least, none that make the most sense or would produce tangible, positive results - will be enacted. Rather, the entire process will degenerate into political finger-pointing, with one party blaming the other as being"obstructionist," while the other blames the former for being "too partisan."

And in the end, of course, the federal budget and the taxpayers will be the biggest losers.

If the rampant rise of Tea Parties and the defeat of President Obama's agenda in the gubernatorial races of New Jersey and Virginia - both states he won in November 2008 - don't prove that the American public generally seems less and less tolerant of political posturing and political posers these days, maybe the historic election of Republican Scott Brown in all-blue-state Massachusetts - the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat, no less - does.

Others who sell themselves more as problem-solvers than political hacks are liable to do as well in the months and years ahead, regardless of - or even in spite of - political party and affiliation.

The days of party line obstructionism are gone. The American public no longer has the stomach for it. They want results. They want a return on their political investment. They want responsiveness from their elected leaders. They want accountability. And they want it now. For they know our problems have become too daunting to ignore and too pressing to be subjected to the circular, self-serving nonsense that now passes for political process in the nation's capital.

They know we need leaders to step up and guide us towards the future - one that is less certain today than just 1o years ago.

The current financial crisis, our mounting debt, the ongoing global threat posed by terrorism and the politics of stalemate in Washington have all combined to make political parties in this day and age if not obsolete then at least unimportant.

Americans can sense danger and they know we are in dire need of leaders who are constitutionally astute, singularly focused and who have the vision, wisdom and passion to care more about solving problems than carrying water for their party.

They see the dripping irony that is Washington, D.C., a city built to house our leaders that is itself so devoid of leadership. And they wonder: Have we no true statesmen left?

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