Recommended: America is Not Ungovernable

I recommend Jay Cost's piece today in RealClearPolitics, entitled America is Not Ungovernable. Cost argues that the founders deliberately designed the federal government so that it had limited powers, and so that it was hard to enact new programs unless there was a wide consensus in support the new proposals. He disagrees with pundits who have been claiming that we have become ungovernable - he argues instead that President Obama simply hasn't governed well, that he has let Speaker Pelosi become, in effect, a prime minister and shape legislation too liberal for the Senate and the voters to accept.

He argues that the Republicans aren't just obstructionists - they are doing the only thing the system allows a minority to do when they disagree with the approach proposed. He argues that the Democrats aren't "spineless" - the moderates who are being troublesome are in fact representing the views of their constituents, just as they are supposed to do. He argues that "the people" aren't to blame - they haven't misunderstood the health bill; they just don't like the approach taken.

I find his arguments persuasive. Certainly there is a wide consensus in the nation that health care needs reform; there just isn't a wide consensus that the Democrat's plan is the right way to enact that reform.