If our nation’s leaders were truly concerned about “We the People,” there would be more reaching “across the aisle.” All we see are partisan attacks and in-fighting. It’s time to find some common ground.
There have been at least two Master Classes featuring opposing political icons who successfully found some common ground – Karl Rove and David Axelrod and Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright.
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation recently conducted a poll among Democrat and Republican voters and discovered the following:
“Nine-in-ten voters want policymakers to work together to avoid a shutdown and focus on implementing solutions to our growing national debt. Strong majorities of Americans also support the creation of a bipartisan fiscal commission to address the nation’s fiscal challenges, as has been proposed by a number of leaders from both parties in the House and Senate.
This new national survey, jointly conducted by Democratic firm Global Strategy Group and Republican firm North Star Opinion Research, finds:
- 90% of voters, including 91% of Democrats and 89% of Republicans, agree that lawmakers from both parties should work together to avoid a government shutdown and focus their efforts on finding solutions for our national debt.
- Strong majorities of voters believe a shutdown should be avoided because it harms the economy (77%) and because it distracts from America’s larger fiscal challenges (70%).
- Seven-in-ten voters are concerned that there will be a federal government shutdown because lawmakers will be unable to come to a budget agreement by the September 30 deadline.
- There is also growing support among Democratic and Republican voters for the creation of a bipartisan commission* to recommend a comprehensive package of reforms to reduce the national debt. Sixty-eight percent of voters support a bipartisan fiscal commission, up five points from June. Support for a fiscal commission spans party lines, including 69% of Democrats and 67% of Republicans; Overall, only 5% of voters are opposed.”
Note: David M. Walker, Former Comptroller General and Co-Founder and Board Member of the Federal Fiscal Sustainability Foundation, Inc. said this in 2022: “We will need a statutory Fiscal Sustainability Commission to restore fiscal sanity. That commission must actively engage the American people with the facts and tough choices we face, solicit input on reforms and make a package of recommendations to Congress that will be guaranteed a vote.”