by Bob Tippee, Editor
In the US budget showdown, an industry poised to be compromised should not welcome a spirit of compromise. But that wisp was all President Barack Obama could cheer on July 7 after meeting with congressional leaders on the nation's fiscal crisis.
The trigger issue is a vote on raising the federal debt ceiling. The Treasury Department says the step must be taken by Aug. 2.
But Congress won't lift the debt lid without action on the federal deficit. Budget negotiators have agreed to seek a deal that would appear to lower the cumulative deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years. But they differ over methods.
Democrats want to increase revenue, a euphemism they use for raising taxes. Republicans want instead to cut spending.
If those were the only issues, compromise would be in order.
But much more is at stake than how to bring the federal budget under control.
The basic issue is the role of government. Democrats want the government to seize wealth and dispense goodness. Republicans want to leave wealth in private hands and let markets distribute benefits.
These positions can't be reconciled. The conflict is fundamental. It was inevitable that, as Obama said while announcing that talks would continue through the weekend, negotiators would be "still far apart on a wide range of issues." Of course they are. They inhabit different political planets.
Nevertheless, Obama said, they "came here in a spirit of compromise."
Let's hope not. Compromise in this showdown would deflate a question that should be settled in elections a year from November, not in deals made under the presidential whip by negotiators horse-trading national values in closed meetings.
And, oh yes, compromise in this showdown almost certainly means discriminatory tax increases on the oil and gas industry.
The budget showdown is a reprehensible product of political maneuvering from which both parties should seek paths of retreat. Then voters should decide how much government they want in their lives—and their pockets.
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