Loading...Partisan Politics Works, but Less Strident, Please
;)
By George M. Israel, III
President & CEO
Georgia Chamber of Commerce
I believe that politics in America is largely a wholesome activity. I will be the first to admit that we have become too partisan in recent years and the results of this bitterness is not productive, but I know enough history to know that we have been there before and the pendulum will likely swing back to more civility. At least, I hope so.
I’d like say a good word about partisan politics without actually being partisan (definitely not my intention). I believe that a strong and vibrant two party system (or more, if that should ever come about in America) serves to give voters a political home and not just in election years. It can (or, at least, it should) be a place where people of relative like minds hash out issues, debate them, seek consensus and eventually decide on candidates to represent them.
I think we can all agree that the old solutions won’t work and we need new approaches. Political parties can be incubators, where new and competing ideas are born and nurtured, leading to enough mutual agreement on the long-term objectives we all share so that voters can choose the side that best matches their thinking. They might even be persuaded to switch sides every once in a while and not feel guilty about being nominal Democrats or Republicans.
But, alas, as we survey the American landscape in the winter of 2008, we are already deeply involved in a heated and very partisan campaign, one where the first vote won’t be cast for more than nine months. If you just read the papers and watch cable news, you’d think the election was next week.
So, while I still enthusiastically believe in the political process, even with the divisiveness unpleasantness that sometimes accompanies it, there is one aspect of it that concerns me greatly.
In an effort to win votes and sway special interest groups, candidates have been known to focus attacks on groups that are not at fault for the problems they talk about and, worse, groups that may hold the solutions for helping improve things.
Yes, I am talking about business. I will admit that some criticism is justified, but it seems to me that politicians are much too quick to blame business for problems that really have other causes. And, worse, by making business the enemy, they ignore the fact that “business” is not a monolith or a thing; it is people, a lot of hard working American citizens, including a lot of middle class people who invest their life savings in businesses.
The Free Enterprise System we have in America is not always pure and it is not always right, but it is always better than the next best alternative. It’s hard to argue that the concept of “free markets and free people” has not been good for the U.S. and, by extension, the world.
At the Georgia Chamber, we will always be pro-business, never forgetting that business is just about everybody: employers, employees, investors and, of course, consumers. We believe strongly in the system, but we believe just as strongly that business should not become a whipping boy for failed government policies. Because, when that happens, we all suffer.
