Leadership Vacuum Main Roadblock to Budget Impasse

Some zealots on both sides will assuredly read the following as me making a false equivalence. This is their way of trying to distract from their sides' faults by pointing out what they see as worse on the other side.

Other people can play that ridiculous, and totally counterproductive, game. I'm merely concerned with identifying roadblocks that need to be cleared so our federal government can get around to passing a budget.

It's been a shame that our nation's leader has done anything but lead on the budget. The president's default tactic is to step back, nudge and prod behind the scenes, and let a deal get near worked out before he jumps in and uses the bully pulpit to push it over the finish line. I think this isn't necessarily a bad tactic in some situations, but no tactic is always the right one.

The budget is months overdue - it just makes no sense for him to still be on the sidelines anymore. The Republicans' problems have been all over the news for months. There is a wing of their party who would be just fine with government shutting down for months, until they get everything they want - to the tune of $100 billion in cuts, and yet another segment of their base that won't be happy unless all funding for programs like Planned Parenthood is cut, neither of which has any change at all of passing.

On top of the fact that the supposed leader of their party is refusing to act the part, the Democrats can't expect to be taken seriously when they respond to a package of suggested cuts equaling $61 billion with an offer of "meeting them half way" with about one sixth as much in cuts. If the Democrats can't even get basic fractions right, it is no wonder they've helped dig our country into such a debt and deficit hole.

But to their credit, the rumor mill has it that the Democrats, over objections from their own more extreme elements, have offered over $30 billion in cuts. This is close to the number John Boehner started with before the GOP base freaked out over how far that was away from the completely disconnected-from-reality $100 billion cut promises the GOP made to the Tea Party in the run up to the midterm elections.

This really comes down to a lack of basic leadership among the two most powerful men in Washington. John Boehner needs to lead his party, rather than let the extreme elements of his party drag the country into dysfunction, and President Obama needs to act like the President of the United States of America and start... you know... leading the country.

Solomon Kleinsmith is a nonprofit worker, serial social entrepreneur and strident centrist independent blogger from Omaha, Nebraska. His website, Rise of the Center, is the fastest growing blog targeting centrist independents and moderates. He is currently collaborating with other centrist independent and moderate bloggers on a news aggregation and social networking site, and is always looking for ways to help the independent groundswell as more and more people become disaffected with the two major parties.