An Urban's Rural View

It's easy to get lost in the "Congressman Blurt said this, Senator Blatt said that" news accounts, but there does seem to be movement in the Washington logjam over funding the government and raising the debt ceiling.

Stepping back, what seems to be happening is this: The terms of the debate have shifted. The Republicans and Democrats are no longer squabbling about whether to have a negotiation on defanging Obamacare. Now they're bickering about whether to have a negotiation on deficit reduction.

That sounds like a subtle shift and it is. Either way, they're still just talking about whether to talk. But a negotiation over Obamacare stood no chance of occurring, whereas a negotiation over deficit reduction is not only possible: It's inevitable.

Think of it this way. Eventually, the government will be funded and the debt ceiling will be raised. There's no alternative. We will get there. The only question is how.

It can't be through unconditional surrender by one side or the other. Both are dug in too deeply for that. The only way out is for each to get something it can call a victory.

In other words, a compromise. And the path to compromise is negotiation. As deficit reduction is at the heart of the budget and debt-ceiling issues, that's what the negotiation will be about.

There's even talk in Washington ag circles that the farm bill could hitchhike on a "grand bargain" over the fiscal issues. It's certainly encouraging to hear both sides say everything could be on the table in an eventual negotiation.

But a grand bargain need not include agriculture policy. Americans need a functioning government that hasn't defaulted on its debts; most don't need a farm bill.

And the same dilemma dogging the farm bill as a separate piece of legislation could exclude it from a fiscal deal: the $36 billion gap between the House's and Senate's notions of how much to cut food stamps. Facing so many other contentious issues, the negotiators might decide they don't need another.

Could a grand bargain embrace the farm bill's commodity, conservation and rural-development titles but not the nutrition title? In theory I suppose so. But why would the Republicans agree to that when it would leave the food-stamp program continuing with no cuts at all?

Still, any hint of a break in a logjam is heartening. Once the logs start moving, who knows where they'll end up?

Urban Lehner

urbanity@hotmail.com

(SK)

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