The first fallacy in my tale is that government’s role in assuring fairness and the general welfare, including the marketplace, is paramount to socialism and inimical to a capitalist, free-market system. The second fallacy is that a free democratic system of government can be governed by unrestricted debate within the halls of Congress.

The concept that fairness and the general welfare are solely the private concerns and responsibility of individual citizens is disavowed in the preamble to the Constitution. Our system of government was founded on the principle that justice and the general welfare are among the primary goals of governance. When in the late nineteenth century the great barons of the industrial age seemed to monopolize national wealth, a Republican president worked with Congress to pass the Sherman Anti-trust Act. When the banks over extended themselves and floundered in the market crash of 1929, a Democratic president met with business leaders to promote a constructive turnaround in the market. But his efforts to legalize this initiative were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and were considered “socialistic” by his opponents. So, having learned his lesson in constitutional law, he instead used the federal government to create the social mechanisms that helped relieve the pain of depression era citizens and promote the general welfare. Of course, many of President Roosevelt’s initiatives are still with us today. In fact, subsequent Congresses have enacted many laws in the same genre of social legislation—from the G.I Bill to the Social Security Act of 1962 to Medicare/Medicaid and, more recently, the Affordable Care Act. At the same time, Congress has restricted social legislature it considered non-productive, as in the welfare reform of the 1990s, and in various efforts to limit regulatory control that seemed to impede free markets. All these legislative acts were performed in the name of fairness and the general welfare of Americans, including their businesses. To deny this governing philosophy is to invalidate the American system of government and to revise our civic history. Of course, there will always be arguments around what best promotes the general welfare. Those debates have resounded on the floor of Congress from the very beginning of our constitutional system. But never have our elected officials denied their responsibility to govern by these principles, until now.

The second fallacy is the efficacy of unlimited Congressional debates. The only efficacy that can be associated with legislative debate is the commitment of its participants to compromise. Debating in essence is a zero sum game. It ends in total victory for one side and complete dismissal of the other. Usually, the debates we witness in Congress are hyperbole-driven arguments designed to advance a position while discrediting an opponent’s. Wise legislators are supposed to sort out the kernel from the shaft on either side and find that common ground where compromise resides. The final resolution to this process rests in the vote where the will of the majority rules. Democracy demands a vote and acceptance of the will of the majority. During the constitutional convention, for example, the issue of slavery was debated, but no resolution could be found. The words “slavery” and “slave” do not even appear in our Constitution. The clauses referring to “three-fifths of all persons” and any “person held to service or labour” were artful dodges of a reality that simply could not be broached. The southern states could neither abide the loss of their financial and cultural system nor face what might potentially become a vengeful slave rebellion. Without a compromise, the debate gradually became more rancorous over the seceding years, until the only resolution possible was raised to an existential threat. Although there is no doubt that President Lincoln was an abolitionist, he dearly wanted to preserve the union and the very crux of our Constitution (“We the people . . . in order to form a more perfect Union”). With the admission of new states to the union, the issue of slavery in these new states gave birth to various Solomon-like compromises successfully debated by the likes of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. But the South viewed these sham compromises as forced concessions and in the words of John C. Calhoun, the South no longer had any “compromise to offer . . . and no concession . . . to make.” The lack of compromise and refusal to accept the will of the majority states eventually led to secession and the Civil War.

Currently, our Congress is divided on the issue of health care. Obviously, there is no proportionality between health care reform and slavery or between a government/economic shutdown and civil war. But the language and dire threats of the current debate do bear a resemblance to what transpired over 150 years ago. An elected majority in both houses of the Congress voted and passed the Affordable Care Act nearly four years ago. The Republican minority fiercely objected at the time and, during the intervening years, has gained a majority voice in the House where it has voted repetitively for the repeal of this law. Republicans seem absolutely convinced that this law will wreak great havoc on Americans and have threatened to shut down the government and even the economy as a result of this conviction. They will debate, but will not compromise. They refuse to accept or concede to the will of an elected majority. And they advance an existential threat to the government and to the American economy in support of their conviction.

The question I have to ask is how does the Affordable Care Act merit such fierce opposition? Is it not the role of the government to address the inadequacies in our health care system? And why can’t the Republicans accept a law duly passed by Congress, signed by the President, and vetted by the Supreme Court? With their majority in the House, they still have the power to correct any flaws in this law. After all, both Democrats and Republicans have started from a common base: Republican concepts of a universal mandate and private insurance exchanges. The Democrats gave up on their public option almost immediately in an effort to win bipartisan support. Do not both parties have an interest in correcting any inefficiencies or unintended consequences that may arise in this law’s implementation? It seems to me that Congress has been held hostage by the fallacy that government has no role to play in promoting the general welfare of its citizens—which happens to include their physical health. In addition, Congress has been subjected to the fallacy that endless debate should brook any compromise or acceptance of majority rule. In the midst of this turmoil, neither side in this never-ending debate shows any regard for our system of government. One side admits the need to compromise without advancing any concession to the need to begin negotiations. The other side only desires a “conversation” without acknowledging any desire to compromise. In neither position is there any room for real dialogue.

The only factor that can change this self-destructive dynamic is the electorate. My tale of two fallacies cannot be the tail that wags the fortunes of our country into dysfunctional chaos.