Dance Partner

I'm with Jonah Goldberg. It's disconcerting to see Joe Biden turn out to be the adult in the White House. When it came down to the wire he was the only Democrat Mitch McConnell could find who was capable of negotiating a deal. I am among those who think this is a bad time to be raising taxes on anybody but this is also a time for pragmatism, time to take the best deal we can get.

Pragmatism used to be a virtue in politics. These days it seems to be in short supply. It doesn't bode well for the next few years, but there are a few bright spots. Both parties recognize that a thriving economy is vital to their interests and there are some areas where those interests are beginning to align.

One is trade. The president wants a new multilateral agreement with the Trans Pacific Partnership and he should get it. It will get a lot of people back to work and into better jobs, an unqualified good thing that even party ideologues can support. So will a long overdue deal with the European Union. Even big labor can support that. EU laws are more labor friendly than ours. The pendulum has swung pretty far against unions in the US lately. It probably wouldn't hurt to have it swing back a bit, especially in the manufacturing sector.

Another area most of us can probably agree on is exploiting newly accessible gas and oil reserves. Self proclaimed environmentalists reflexively resist anything that will prolong the industrial revolution but the cat is out of the bag on this one. Matt Damon's anti-fracking propaganda movie Promised Land is too late to stop it. Any economic revival will necessarily be driven by cheap and abundant energy supplies. They are here. They are relatively clean. They come with little risk. They offer all sorts of well paying jobs, and not just in extraction.

I'm guessing this is the year for some sort of immigration reform. There are enough Republicans and Democrats who want something like the DREAM Act that they should be able to get it passed. They will demagogue each other mercilessly but they will pass something. It makes sense. Few of us really want to deport people who were brought here illegally as children, grew up here, and are Americans in everything but the paper work. If they are to stay here it is in everyone's best interest to educate them, get them into the most productive jobs possible, and let them make positive contributions to society. We need them and despite all the election year posturing I suspect most of us know that.

Prospects for education reform are looking up too. Not much is likely to come from Washington. Teachers unions are still too powerful for that but they are slowly losing their grip at the state and local level where the most important decisions are still made. Charter schools are steadily gaining ground. So are vouchers and other forms of subsidy for private schools. Nothing can compete with the influence of parents on the education of children and parents are seeing more choice. I expect the trend to continue and that is also an unqualified good thing.

I wish I were as optimistic about entitlement spending but I just don't see a way through the morass on Medicare, Obamacare, and what seems now to be unlimited unemployment insurance. The latter may ease up a bit with an improving economy but it is a perverse form of welfare that will require better leadership than we have now for a long term fix. I am pleasantly surprised the Vice President has done what he has. I doubt he can do much more.