Compromise?

Learn from history. There's no other way.

"That government is best which governs least." -- Henry David Thoreau

   President Obama has offered to compromise as the Republican Party takes full control of Congress. And despite six years of an improving economy, the Radical Righteous still claim that anything and everything Obama does is wrong.
   The unemployment rate nationwide has been cut by nearly half, from above 10 percent to below 6 percent; the federal budget deficit has been steadily declining; the international balance of payments has improved; companies have begun hiring again, and a nationwide health care plan is in place.
   All that aside, things are still bad, goes the mantra, and survival depends on less government. Ideally, none at all. That would mean a return to the 1920s or even earlier, when there were no controls over Wall Street speculators, corporate barons, banking and finance strategists, as well as no Social Security pension plans, unemployment benefits or bank deposit insurance, or even a minimum wage.
   Also, there would be no labor unions to protect the wages, working conditions and civil rights of employees.
   In short, no regulation of anything, in any form, in any area, ever. A totally free, unfettered capitalist system, dominated by a few and detrimental to the many.
   The so-called Gilded Age of the 1890s was indeed a wonderful time, if you were part of the One Percent and all others "knew their place," and dared not try to rise above their class, even in this "Land of Opportunity." (Can you say hypocrisy?)
   
   Tuesday's election results reflected a strong shift to the right among American voters, who have become disillusioned with any idea of progress out of Washington. The most recent session of Congress has passed the fewest number of bills in many years. The Washington Post, citing Pew Research Center data, noted that the 113th Congress (2013-2014) approved just 108 bills of any substance and only 34 "ceremonial" bills, such as naming post offices or honoring anniversaries. That compares with 183 substantive measures and 33 ceremonial bills passed by the 105th Congress in 1997-1998.
   All this even as the GOP lambastes Obama for his failures to accomplish anything. As if reducing unemployment, cutting the deficit, increasing job growth, recovering from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and starting universal health care  don't count.
   
   Midterm elections often reduce the strength of an incumbent President and his party, and this happened again this week to the Democrats. As a result, President Obama says he's "eager to work with Congress over the next two years" to continue the economic progress made since the 2008 crisis. However, "the challenges that lay ahead are far too important to allow partisanship or ideology" to prevent progress.
   Nevertheless, Obama warned that if Congress fails to act, he will, through executive action.
   The conservative wing of the Republican Party seems to believe that the economy has "recovered" and will do nicely if left alone.
   The lesson from history is this: As the economy pulls out of the Great Recession, withdrawing government support efforts may well result in a second downturn, as happened in 1937 during the tough years of the Great Depression.
   Even that bastion of American business, Bloomberg Business Week, has endorsed Keynesian economics and its strategies of government intervention to boost a nation's health. In the current issue, economics editor Peter Coy writes, "The global economy is failing to thrive, and its caretakers are fumbling," and what the world needs now is the stimulus strategies of economist John Maynard Keynes. "The symptoms of the Great Depression are back," Coy writes, "though fortunately on a smaller scale."
   Moreover, calls for reductions in spending are counterproductive, because if everyone does it, nobody benefits, since "your spending is my income," and vice versa, as Nobel Economist Paul Krugman has put it. And on a national level, "a country is not a company."
   In this corner, we noted four years ago that withdrawing support too soon as an economy begins to recover may well happen again, just as it did in 1937.
   Be warned.