Finding fault, counterbalance

At the Dallas Morning News Opinion blog this morning, the usual suspects are engaged in a shouting war over who's at fault for the predicament we're in. The conservatives blame the liberals, the Dems blame the Repubs, and on and on.

Life's too short to waste it making things more complicated than they need to be, so here's my patented formula for determining and assigning blame when things go wrong: See who controls the executive and legislative branches. In our admittedly imperfect system of governance, nothing much gets done unless each branch is complicit with the other. Based on my formula, the Repubs controlled both branches from 2001 to 2007, so they get the blame for everything that's wrong today. That allows for the fact that national problems are so monumental they couldn't possibly have sprung up in a mere 12 months.

By the same token, let's assume the Dems control both branches from now until 2013. That assumes the Dems are able to maintain House/Senate majorities through the 2010 midterm elections, which may be a stretch considering how things are starting out. My formula demands that whatever problems exist in 2013 will be the Dem's fault. Just as today's problems are those the Repubs either caused or failed to prevent, the problems four years hence will belong exclusively to the Democrats. That means they need to pull their heads out and get on the damned stick.

My bro and I favor divided government, in which organic friction between the executive and legislative branches slows the pace of lawmaking and policy-initiating and keeps elected officials in capital cities out of excessive mischief. Our last extended period of divided federal government (1994-2000) was relatively trouble-free and might've been even better if the House Repubs hadn't been obsessed with the goal of impeaching The Prez. At any rate, neither side could could be assigned all the credit or all the blame for conditions as they were. That reduced finger-pointing and made American life a bit neater.

Things were thrown out of balance in 2000. Some balance was restored in 2006, but by then the messes were too overwhelming to be cleaned up overnight. Then last November's election resulted in more imbalance. If the Dems have four years to work on things, they may get some of the damage repaired; if they don't, I'll know who's at fault.