The Art of Negotiation

I took a course in Negotiating a long time ago and learned that the first rule of negotiating is defining what you want and figuring out what the other side wants.  But for negotiating to work there has to be some overlap between the desires.  No overlap, no point in negotiating.

This is the essence of what the Constitution was designed to preserve.  A path forward for the nation to move along has to accommodate a variety of views.  The Tea Party instead just wants to lower their taxes to they have more to spend on themselves and then they have the nerve to say the Democrats are promoting Class Warfare.  The Republican assault on government through the failure to preserve budget balance through the last decade by failing to pay for the War on Terror instigated this class warfare.

Now it has become clear that the Republican Party nationwide is abandoning negotiating because they think that by stopping all progress on everything they will win reelection.  Well I can only hope that the voters wake up and vote them out, but it will take the Democrats to make that an issue.

Where does this come from?  Well we see it in Congress every week as they fail to compromise on raising revenues even from limiting tax deductions/subsidies and lowering the overall tax rate.   We see it in NY, as they fail to pass the enabling legislation to create a Health Insurance Exchange even though Republican dominated Utah has one and it works fine as a competition enabling vehicle.  And now, Jerry Brown has found in CA, that the Republicans in the legislature will not agree to anything that allows the voters to express their opinion on how to fix their miserable budget mess.

Republicans are not interested in negotiating, they are only interested in tearing down the safety net.  Democrats need to learn how to run on this point and get the voters to give them a mandate to fix our fiscal problems by addressing entitlements while preserving their important role in providing a safety net that helps those who lose their way in this market economy.