The fourth way to do politics

If you simplify it, there are roughly four basic ways to get political outcomes. The first is to do it the way the tax and spend Democrats do it. The second is to do it the way the debt and spend Republicans want. Third, you can pursue policy that amounts to a compromise. Compromise might be some new spending to appease Democratic party ideology and going further into debt to appease Republican party ideology.

The fourth way

However, there is another way. That approach ignores political and religious ideology, look at the reality of a problem and then try to find and pursue the most efficient and cost-effective solution that best serves the public interest. Approaching policy the fourth way could lead to four outcomes; (1) the Democratic way, (2) the Republican way, (3) compromise and (4) none of those. The fourth outcome is what's missing in politics.

An example helps clarify this. In the 2010 lame duck congressional session, congress passed a compromise bill. It extended unemployment benefits (what Democratic ideology wanted) and the Bush tax cuts (what Republican ideology wanted). The tax cuts were not paid for and added another $400 billion or so to the current fiscal year deficit. That is a clear impact of Republican ideology, despite their howls of outrage at the current year deficit. The impact of the extended benefits is not clear.

However, ignoring ideology and looking at the situation from a broader context than two-party ideology, there clearly was a fourth way. Sadly, it got no consideration. It had no chance. Broader context behind the compromise included, among other things, slow economic growth, high unemployment, out of control federal deficit spending and the endless clash of political ideologies. The compromise was justified in the minds of both parties. Otherwise, the compromise would not have passed congress.

But, was it really justified? Was it the best thing to do?

The fourth way: Extending the tax cuts probably won't do much for slow economic growth or unemployment (according to at least some economic opinion), but it did increase the deficit (according to everyone). Extending benefits may help some with unemployment, but at what cost? Would it (a fourth way) have made more sense to let the tax cuts expire and leave benefits alone? Maybe. Would it have been more efficient to let the tax cuts expire and use half of the new revenue for debt reduction and the other half for building critical infrastructure and/or extended unemployment benefits? Maybe. There are other scenarios. Regardless, we won't ever know because we didn't take a fourth way. We didn't even analyze or seriously consider a fourth way.

Enslaved

The problem is that the two parties are enslaved to their ideologies. They cannot contemplate solutions to problems that conflict with with their beliefs. In short, political ideologues can be largely (or completely) blind to reality for any given issue. That mostly prevents ideologues from thinking rationally or seeing outside their limits. If that is essentially true, the question is how many possible reasonable solutions to a given problem are off the ideologue's table and never seriously considered?

It wouldn't be surprising if the best solutions to complex problems fall into the fourth category more often than not. How could that be? That could be if you consider the failure of the political and religious ideology of both the left and the right. Compromise between two opposing but failed, ideologies may or may not be the best way to go. Failure of the felt and the right is the starting point. A compromise should result in failure. Accepting that makes it is easier to see that a fourth way could at least sometimes, maybe usually, be the best way.

Republican blindness

Unfortunately, the fourth way isn't going to get a fair shot at influencing policy from either the Democratic or Republican parties. They just don't have it in them. Republicans approach problems with the mind set "how can I kill off evil government", even if the best solution to an issue clearly is more government or regulation. That idea rubs their ideology the wrong way. That option cannot be fairly assessed - Republican ideology cannot easily conceive and/or accept such a scenario.

Democratic blindness

Democrats tend to have the flip side of that blindness problem, how to use government to fix a problem when more government or regulation isn't the answer. They cannot easily conceive and/or accept scenarios where it makes sense to have government stand aside to the extent doing that makes sense.

Arguably, the best way to approach problems is not to prejudge which solution is best or to allow ideology to distort reality so that the preferred solution fits the ideology. Instead, one should look coldly and honestly at a problem and accept the solution that makes the most sense, regardless of whose ideology, if anyone's, that solution conforms to.

It takes moral courage

The only way to break away from the weak and stunted political thinking that we get from the two parties is to form a new political party. That party would not prejudge political problems or issues from any particular ideological viewpoint. Of course, doing that takes strength of character. That approach to politics can lead to where people refuse to go. It takes courage to see reality for what it is and then test it against your own ideology.

It is probably the case that most people can't or won't do that. If that is basically true, it is should also be the case that having little or no strong ideological beliefs makes objectively looking at problems easier.

More often than not, reality doesn't fit ideology so ideologues retreat into their ideology. To accommodate that need, reality tends to get distorted into something it isn't. An ideologue can't be wrong if reality is distorted to conform. The psychological comfort is why political and religious ideologies in politics dominate. Its just human nature.

However, it should be self-evident that distorting reality can easily lead to ineffective political policies and waste of resources and time. The innate human tendency to distort the world to fit belief has been a major factor in the failure of American politics. It is easy to let ideology tell you what is right and what isn't. Ideologues can't think freely and do not have to face the consequences of free thinking. They don't have the moral courage.

No wonder America is up to its eyeballs in nasty alligators and serious unsolved problems. We are sloshing around the swamp blindfolded by ideology with nothing rational to guide the way.