It's Time for Congress to Reengage

I'm a Democrat but I'm a strong believer that our country needs two parties. Although I theoretically favor third parties, the truth is that even third parties at the end of the day need to understand how to put together a coalition of votes. It's obvious that Tea Party Republicans are frankly behaving like a third party, though for reasons not well understood, they are dominating the Republican Party. It seems a combination of wealthy right wing Republicans and very conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh and news organization like Fox News give cover to Tea Republicans.

It's been apparent for some time that a growing number of rational Republicans recognize that they have a problem and that problem is that Tea Party Republicans cannot govern, largely because of their unwillingness a vast majority of the time to work with Democrats.

In Politico Magazine, Steve LaTourette has an article arguing that the Republican Party needs to get back to governing:

The governing wing of the Republican Party understands that compromise is not the root of all evil in Washington—indeed, it is the essential ingredient in moving forward any set of conservative policies like those that Reagan fought for.

While the grifters hold a great deal of sway over the Republican Party for now, they are not the majority—not by a long shot. As with any good Ponzi scheme, there are relatively few grifters; the challenge is exposing their scam.

All politicians argue their position. All politicians in our country take money from campaign donors. But at the end of the day, representatives in Congress need to get down to business and take the job of government seriously. For the past four years, Tea Party Republicans have shown they cannot do that.