Editor,
Trying to figure out what Americans want from government as a result of the mess in the Gulf can only leave you scratching your head. We want decisive action, but not at too great an expense. We want beefed up regulation, but don’t want to stifle our energy independence.
The response to the Gulf oil spill is just one example of the quandary our politicians face: It’s tough to give Americans what they want.
We may be bitter about the growing budget deficit, but we also resent efforts to cut entitlement spending or raise taxes. We want limited government, but we keep demanding expanded government services.
So it’s unfair to place all the blame on us for government’s failings on our politicians. We — all of us — deserve some of the blame.
We have to understand that much of what goes on in policy-making on Capitol Hill is the effort to reconcile our irreconcilable views. This is the tough, time-consuming work of representative democracy, and voters owe politicians some understanding and patience — since we so often contribute to the dilemma in the first place.
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Lee Hamilton is Director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years. _
