Alfonse D'Amato

It’s time to get down to business in Washington

Posted

The urgent is keeping America from the important.

The media-induced urgency of covering what the Russians did or didn’t do to our democracy is allowing us to lose sight of what Americans truly care about, and Washington has become a co-conspirator in that loss of focus. To average Americans struggling to keep their jobs, figuring out how to make ends meet, worrying about rising health insurance costs, wondering how to pay for their kids’ ballooning college costs, the din in Washington offers little connection to their everyday lives.

So now that D.C. will lawyer up with special counsels and committees to see whether the Russians were in cahoots with the Trump campaign, it’s time to step back, take a deep breath and get on with the actual work of running the country. That goes for everybody from the president on down.

Like millions of others, I voted for President Trump and very much want him to succeed. But I want him to stop the self-inflicted damage of his presidency and concentrate his considerable energy and talent on tackling the problems that led so many Americans to support him in the first place. Equally important, I want congressional leaders to reset their sights and get down to work on the issues that really matter to the American people.

In hitting a restart, let’s begin with the economy. Anxiety over our fragile economic recovery, which has not reached many corners of the nation — from inner cities to suburban areas and small rural towns — is gnawing at Americans’ confidence in themselves and their future. This should have been the No. 1 priority of the president and Congress from Day One, not Obamacare, not border walls and Muslim bans, not endless fights with the nation’s intelligence community, and certainly not a battle with liberal media elites who will never be satisfied with a conservative government.

To put in place initiatives that get the U.S. economy growing at a pace to extend growth and prosperity to America’s long-neglected corners, we need to lighten the nation’s heavy tax load. Let’s begin with an overhaul of the corporate tax code to bring down business taxes that are higher than just about anywhere else in the world, and which have stranded $2 trillion in overseas tax shelters. Let’s lower the corporate rate to 15 percent and bring those dollars back home.

Every factory that hires rather than lays off workers, every road or bridge or tunnel that gets built, every dollar that courses through small businesses — all will lift the paychecks and the confidence of the hardworking Americans who are the bedrock of our economy. And if we want to give a further boost to the forgotten middle class, let’s aim some modest tax relief squarely at them, with lower rates and expanded credits for family costs, and protection of deductions for state and local taxes.

Let’s not cut taxes on the upper reaches of income. Let’s not completely eliminate inheritance taxes. Let’s not continue to give a privileged few hedge fund managers billions of dollars in “carried interest” tax shelters. Let’s not burn up every chance for a true bipartisan tax plan by proposing tax cuts that divide rather than unite us.

Once we’ve laid down a strong economic foundation to engender confidence in the financial markets, encourage businesses large and small, spur real growth and help create good jobs, let’s then turn our attention to containing the costs that are eating away at paychecks and savings accounts. Let’s find common ground on controlling health insurance premiums so that health care is more accessible and affordable. Let’s not get hung up on Obamacare or Trumpcare, and instead forge some combination of “AmeriCare” that protects the progress we’ve made in extending health coverage to more of our citizens without drowning them in excess cost and bureaucracy. Why can’t health savings accounts, and making health insurance portable across state lines, be added to protecting pre-existing conditions and covering young people until age 26 on their parents’ policies?

I know that in this time of cynicism and distrust of government at all levels, it’s easy to assume that nothing can get done in Washington, and that we’re doomed to months, if not years, of dysfunction and inertia. But maybe because I’ve had the privilege to serve in Congress, where colleagues on both sides of the aisle are always trying to find a way to work with one another, there is a proven, albeit vintage, roadmap to bipartisan compromise and public policy progress. All of the players in Washington, the media included, need to re-engage on the important issues, and not the urgency of the Russian situation.

Listen up, Donald and Mike, Mitch and Chuck, Paul and Nancy. I know you can do it. I’ve been there when Washington had its act together. It’s time to focus on the important again.

Al D’Amato, a former U.S. senator from New York, is the founder of Park Strategies LLC, a public policy and business development firm. Comments about this column? ADAmato@liherald.com.