Labeling the unlabled

Riff Raff, by Michael Tilley
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An acquaintance recently asked for a review of this “No Labels” group. Here it is.

On the first visit to the website, up popped this question: “Do you want to make Congress work?” There is a box for a “Yes” response and a box for a “No” response.

Such obvious “bait” questions are what one might expect from televangelists. “Do you want to go to Heaven and live for eternity in peace, or burn forever in Heeeelllllll?” This should have been my first indication of what was to come.

Sure, I’d like Congress to work. I also want my children to be trouble-free in their teen years. And it’d be nice if I could again wear those jeans from my college days.

(Before we get much further into this, Kind readers should know that the No Labels leaders are all much more learned than Yours Truly. They’ve attended the right schools. They’ve worked for all the right people, and in the right positions. They’re connected. On the other hand, I’ve made it less than 50 miles out of Johnson County. With my overwhelming disadvantages noted, read further at your own risk.)

Let’s let the No Labels literature explain who and what they are.
“No Labels is a group of Republicans, Democrats and Independents dedicated to a simple proposition: We want our government to work again.

“We, the American people, are the collateral damage of this partisan warfare, saddled with debts we can’t afford and an economy that no longer creates enough good jobs with good pay.”

Then they go on to say we Americans have had enough, and most Americans are in the middle of the partisan rhetoric and No Labels will now stand up for the “silent majority” who apparently detest the political “cycle of dysfunction.”

But some of the No Labels founders, one might argue, have been part of said cycle. Founders include:
• Former U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., who represented Indiana in the Senate from 1999 to 2011;
• U.S. Rep. Al Wynn, D-Md., who served 16 years in the U.S. House of Representatives; and,
• Bill Bloomfield, a retired business executive who served as national director of Volunteers for U.S. Sen John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. (And for purposes of a reminder, McCain is a Republican who compromised with a Democrat to bring us the 2002 “Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act,” aka, McCain-Feingold — one of the nastiest pieces of anti-free speech legislation to come out of Congress.)

The founders also include a gaggle of lobbyists who have spent the past several decades obtaining special tax and regulatory privileges for their clients. Which is to say they’ve been part of the problem in which D.C. has become a place where good government is no match for the money machine that delivers special deals for unions, corporations and foreign governments.

But let’s, for the sake of argument, pretend all the founders repented of their past bad-government sins, and are now faithful followers of life, liberty and the pursuit of debt-free happiness. And let’s also pretend we have checked the “Yes” box on the question: “Do you want to make Congress work?” With all pretense in place, let’s now consider the No Labels 12-point plan (make your Alcoholics Anonymous jokes on your own time) to make Congress work.

• No budget, no pay for members of Congress
Sounds good. Would think that’d be a common sense thing, so, ummm, well, uhhh, hmmm, what about the millionaires in Congress? They’d certainly have some leverage over the members of Congress who might need a check to make ends meet.

• Up or down vote on Presidential appointments
Didn’t realize our present problems — lackluster economy, multi-trillion-dollar deficit, etc. — were connected to appointment problems, but, sure, this sounds reasonable.

• Fix the filibuster
That’s why we have a $14-plus trillion deficit? Procedural shenanigans? Well, OK. Am willing to take their word for it on this one.

• Empower the sensible majority
This would magically reduce the political power of Congressional leadership and committee chairs. Sounds a little Harry Potterish. But like the filibuster thing, am willing to also go along with this idea.

• Make members come to work
How can you not like this part of the plan? But do we really need a movement to make members of Congress work for their paycheck? If so, we may be beyond what a simple movement may fix.

• Question time for the President
Gosh, I don’t see how a televised Q&A between the President and members of Congress would ever become partisan in the manner opposed by the No Labels crowd.

• Fiscal report to Congress: hear it. read it. sign it.
This point comes with this language: “Perhaps the chief obstacle to fixing America’s finances is that no one agrees what’s really on our balance sheet. When leaders in Washington debate our budget, they routinely use different baselines, projections and assumptions, which often conveniently support whatever policy they are pushing at the moment. To quote an old Scottish writer, many Washington leaders ‘use statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts – for support rather than for illumination.’”

OK, that’s cute and clever, but what does it really say? Hear what? Read what? Sign what? I’d like a label on this one.

• No pledge but the oath of office
I want to like this one. We ask our Reps and Senators to go to D.C. and do what’s right, but we also want to box them in with silly pledges to not raise taxes or not cut Social Security benefits or to save our local military base or build us that freeway. Demanding a pledge is a lot like hiring a football coach but asking him to sign a pledge to never run the ball on 3rd and 20. At some point we need the candidates, and not a movement, to reject superficial and appeasing pledges along with a good explanation of why such pledges are BS.

• Monthly bipartisan gatherings
It seems Republicans and Democrats in Congress don’t know each other. Think about this: We send grown men and women to Congress, and they don’t have the skills to get to know the other 99 (Senators) or 434 (House) folks. If we need a No Labels movement to encourage these folks to organize a picnic or softball game or “Twister Thursday” just to introduce themselves, then I submit we’re too far gone.

• Bipartisan seating
And let’s also sing camp songs and share stories about our childhood and smoke some herb and get in touch with our inner legislator. What a load of crap. This Dr. Phil feel-good stuff won’t solve our problems. It’s not where they sit. It’s how they vote.

• Bipartisan leadership committee
Again with the bipartisan stuff. Here’s the problem. The No Labels crowd likes to point to all the great bipartisan agreements of past Presidents and Congress as a reason to drop labels. They are compelling and heartwarming stories. But the deal is, we didn’t get in this financial mess in just the past few years. It’s been building for decades. So if this ambrosia bipartisanship is the answer, why didn’t the past bipartisanship prevent this current mess?

• No negative campaigns against incumbents
Really? We’re going to limit speech? That’s the answer to our problems in D.C., to require members of Congress to shut the $%^& up during campaign season? Wow.

Sorry. I can’t do this No Labels thing. I like labels. It’s nice to know what’s in the package. It’s helpful to know how big is the breadbox. Compromise is great and more of it is needed. Compromise and labels, however, aren’t mutually exclusive.

And, yes, I’m being a little silly with some of the 12 action items. But the only thing I trust less than two choices in the political discussion is one bland unlabeled choice.

We’ve had labels from day one of this country. Our holy and sacred Founding Fathers plastered labels on each other that make our current dialogue seem tame, if not elementary, by comparison. In the final consideration, one might wonder if the solution is to seek no labels, or to seek more clear labels.

We are all susceptible to a fresh and feel-good approach, especially when we’ve been without either in the national political sense for many years. We all remember that first feel-good kiss, but how many of us are glad we didn’t marry the person participating in the personally historic smooch.

And that’s what the No Labels thing is: It’s a fresh new kiss for folks looking for some political love during a time when it’s hard to love anything political.