Whither the center? Moderate politicians an endangered species
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Former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter: "There's no center left."
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WASHINGTON -- When Arlen Specter joined the U.S. Senate in 1981, he could walk into a Republican caucus meeting and see several moderates who were able to find cross-aisle compromises on nettlesome issues.
Now on most major votes, the line between the two parties in Congress looks like an alligator-filled moat -- cross at your own peril.
Mr. Specter did so on the stimulus bill in early 2009, joining Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins as the only GOP votes. The Republican Party all but disavowed him and Mr. Specter became a Democrat, only to lose his primary race for re-election last year.
The bitterly partisan battle now roiling Washington is over the national debt limit. The Treasury Department has said that, come Tuesday, the government will no longer be able to afford to pay its obligations unless Congress raises the $14.3 trillion borrowing limit.
With unknown economic turmoil at stake, President Barack Obama, the Democrat-run Senate and the Republican-controlled House have been unable to reach an agreement on what kind of budget reforms to attach to a debt ceiling hike. Mr. Specter said that wouldn't have been the case in 1981.
"There's no center left," he said by phone from Philadelphia, where he now practices law. "If you had a swing center as we had when I joined the Senate, there would be enough Republicans who would cross over and provide votes to get to 60."
If Mr. Specter were still in office, he said he would be trying to build centrist support for a debt ceiling plan proposed by the so-called Gang of Six: Three senators from each party who labored for six months and recently produced a proposal to save about $3.7 trillion from future deficits through tax reform and spending cuts.
When it was released this month many senators expressed hope, but the loud voices on either end of the parties' ideological spectrum criticized the model, which was too vague to become legislation before the debt deadline, anyway. A similar "grand bargain" proposal was being brokered in secret White House talks between Mr. Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, but those negotiations fell apart as both men faced dissatisfaction from their party bases.
First Published July 31, 2011 12:00 am
