Is America Ready For The Future?

Tom Friedman's column yesterday in the New York Times sets a somber tone as we head into the Fourth of July. He laments the sad state of American politics, particularly in the light of all the challenges we face as a nation:

My fellow Americans: We are a country in debt and in decline — not terminal, not irreversible, but in decline. Our political system seems incapable of producing long-range answers to big problems or big opportunities. We are the ones who need a better-functioning democracy — more than the Iraqis and Afghans. We are the ones in need of nation-building. It is our political system that is not working.

I continue to be appalled at the gap between what is clearly going to be the next great global industry — renewable energy and clean power — and the inability of Congress and the administration to put in place the bold policies we need to ensure that America leads that industry.

“America and its political leaders, after two decades of failing to come together to solve big problems, seem to have lost faith in their ability to do so,” Wall Street Journal columnist Gerald Seib noted last week. “A political system that expects failure doesn’t try very hard to produce anything else.”

His commentary on the lamentable state of our politics is right on. To take only one example, Congress is dithering on reauthorizing investment tax credits for renewable energy, which most analysts consider vital to expanding that industry, even though the credits have wide bipartisan support:

Even though many business leaders have lobbied Congress to extend the tax credits, Senate Republicans say a larger issue is at stake: the fate of President Bush's first-term tax cuts, due to expire in 2010. Many Republicans want to lock those in, and don't like the precedent of allowing some tax increases to make up for the cuts.

The deadlock has caused some friction between Republicans and traditional business allies. More than 400 companies signed a hastily organized letter to Congress urging passage of the tax incentives. The list included AT&T, General Motors, Bank of America, Time Warner and Archer Daniels Midland, along with Cisco Systems and Oracle.

Other manufacturers are growing impatient.

"The debate in Washington has almost reached a theological level, but we're losing a chance to gain U.S. jobs and leadership in a growing field," Morin of Applied Materials
said.

Or consider the sad case of Senator John Ensign of Nevada, whose state has the highest home foreclosure rate in the nation. He's holding up a homeowners mortgage relief bill that would help thousands of his constituents by insisting that the aforementioned renewable energy tax credits be added on to the bill. Both the homeowners relief bill and the investment tax credits have broad support, but Ensign's idea is a poison pill. The Democratic leadership wants the housing bill to be revenue-neutral -- which it would be but for the $6 billion in tax credits Ensign wants to add on.

Does Ensign know he's playing games? Sure! "I think that's a tough choice for them to make," he said, "and that's why we're trying to push them on it."

Here's Washington D.C. in a nutshell for you: kill a bill that everyone agrees is a great idea by adding to it something that everyone also agrees is a great idea, but which cannot fly because of another idea (revenue-neutrality) that everyone also thinks is a great idea. Only in D.C. could they fu*ck up something this badly.