The Things We Choose To Do Together (Editor’s Note)

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Now that Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, despised by the right and not really beloved by anyone, is retiring from Congress, I’ll borrow the only quote of his that bears repeating: “Government is the name we give to the things we choose to do together.”

If I may be so bold, I’ll add a couple of corollaries: Legislation is the compromise between different notions of what we should choose to do, and politics is the process of acquiring and keeping the power to legislate.

And taxes are the intersection between politics, legislation and government.

Now, if you spend a lot of time listening to the talking heads on television, you’d naturally conclude that all Americans hate and resent all taxes, no matter what. Virtually every Republican in Congress and a few Democrats have so bought into that idea as to sign over to a special-interest group, Americans for Tax Reform, aka Grover Norquist, the authority to set tax policy for the entire country.

But Americans aren’t always well represented by those talking heads (or by our elected officials). And there can be no more persuasive proof that not all Americans hate all taxes than the record of direct democracy as exercised in Arkansas this year. At least 26 jurisdictions in Arkansas (22 cities and four counties) have voted on sales tax increases in 2011, and only five of those failed — sometimes by small margins.

There can be only one conclusion: At least some Americans, those of the Arkansan variety, are willing to pay additional taxes for governmental services they deem to be important. And they are willing to be persuaded by elected officials who can make a rational case for the need for more governmental spending.

Arkansans haven’t signed away their authority to vote for certain taxes, which makes me wonder if they understand that many of their elected representatives have done just that. In fact, one group is hoping to amend the Arkansas Constitution so that every tax increase, state or local, must get approval from a majority of voters, an expansion of direct democracy that makes me wonder if we’d then have any need for senators and representatives.

All a legislature — be it United States Congress or the Arkansas General Assembly — really gets paid to do, after all, is to find some compromise on taxing and spending that we can all live with. And compromise, by definition, means that no one comes away completely happy.

I’m ready, and poll after poll indicates that the majority of Americans are ready, for our elected representatives in Congress to get back to the idea of compromise on taxing and spending. And not, I hasten to add, the kind of compromise we saw at this time last year, when the Democrats compromised by not demanding the Republicans let some of the Bush-era tax cuts expire and the Republican compromised by letting the Democrats do some more spending. That kind of everyone-wins compromise is why Uncle Sam is up to his neck in debt.

Even when Congress tries to force its members to get serious, compromise has been rendered impossible because Grover Norquist is ready to pour unlimited dollars into defeating anyone who repents of having his hands tied, even for the good of the country. Even when balancing our budget through a combination of spending cuts and revenue increases is exactly what Americans want to do together to fix the mess we’re in.

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I don’t support the proposed Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because I think deficit spending should be an option for the federal government, just as I have household lines of credit for those times when borrowing makes sense.

I especially think it would be foolhardy to outlaw deficit spending at the same time that raising new revenue is nigh-unto impossible politically. But I can’t help wondering what our federal budget would look like if Grover Norquist and his employers at Americans for Tax Reform had spent 20 years getting politicians to sign a balanced budget pledge instead.

Gwen Moritz is editor of Arkansas Business. Email her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @GwenMoritz.