4A - Monday, April 11, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 4A - Monday, April 11, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom cJbe 1ihiian *Ia4lb IL Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com DANIEL GOLD Isn't that uncomfortable? E-MAILtDANIEL AT DWGOLD@UMICH.EDU Only if you have a backbone. Ew m STEPHANIE STEINBERG EDITOR IN CHIEF MICHELLE DEWITT and EMILY ORLEY EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS KYLE SWANSON MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Crisis (barely) averted Congress needs to start compromising The Smithsonian Institution, National Zoo and national parks across the country remained open for business Saturday morning, but this was aliost not the case. Late Friday night, Congress finally reached a compromise that prevented a federal gov- ernment shutdown. But Americans should not thank Congress for finally doing in the eleventh hour what it should have done days, if not months, ago. While we appreciate Congress getting its act togeth- er, it should have done so before 11 p.m. on Friday night. This goes to show how unbearable the partisan politics of Washington D.C. have become. The partisan divide is tearing apart the nation and making it impossible to govern efficiently. Congress, please stop playing games, and go back to doing your job. The listening b J n a tough estimate that includes all my writing for the arts and opinion sections of The Michi- gan Daily, I have written approxi- mately 330,000 words for this paper - the length of three- and-a-half aver- age novels. That is a whole lot of words. In fact, it's too many. No one who talks IMRAN SYED Friday night, as a government shutdown loomed near, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and President Barack Obama finally struck a deal. The compromise that was reached cut $38 billion in governmental spending.Accordingto anApril10 Bloomberg article, Democrats were initially sticking to $33 billion in cuts, but on Friday afternoon, Obama raised this number and agreedto $38 billion. Republicans were asking for more than $40 billion, and the lingering issue was the Planned Parenthood funding ban. Obama and the Democrats refused to cut any spend- ing from family planning services. The long- term Republican budget plan proposes $4 trillion in cuts and will be the issue of debate in the upcoming weeks. The good news is that the U.S. finally has a budget - in the short term at least. The bad news is that the country was one-and-a-half hours away from a total shutdown. This is unacceptable. At 10:30 p.m. Congress still hadn't reached a consensus, and Americans across the nation were uncertain if their paychecks, tax returns and pension ben- efits would be delayed. Congress works for and represents the people: It does not exist to increase their burdens. There's no reason that this compromise had to come so late. Congress should have and could have acted earlier. Much of the resistance came as a result of the Tea Party's influence. While it is under- standable that the Tea Party is obligated to fight for the policies it was elected on, it is unreasonable for members to do so without compromise. The Republican Party is being pushed further to the political Right by the Tea Party, and this is affecting its ability to negotiate and compromise. The Tea Party needs to understand the limits on its man- date and should stop asking for irrational one-sided policies. Republicans need to take a much stronger stance against this extreme movement and reclaim their authority. Most importantly, the budget ordeal revealed how ugly partisan politics on Capi- tol Hill have become. Americans are already frustrated with the petty party battles being fought in Washington D.C., and this budget crisis did nothing to ease these frustrations. Instead of showing leadership when it was most necessary, our representatives in Wash- ington were busy disagreeing over personal agendas. Congress needs to get its act togeth- er to have deliberative discussions and nego- tiate policy compromises. that much could possibly listen enough. So, I guess it's good that this is my last column. After this I can finally shut up and listen. I began as a freshman at the Uni- versity in the fall of 2004. In my seven years as a student here, I wit- nessed the nationwide expansion of Facebook, release of YouTube and Gmail, the launch of Android and the iPhone and the explosion of blog- ging and texting. In terms of expanding the voice of humanity to encompass more fully the everyday, average person, these have been perhaps the most eventful seven years in history. Time maga- zine (somewhat belatedly) recog- nized the momentous shift that had begun in naming "You" the Person of the Year for 2006: Everyone can now have a say; the field is more level than it has ever been in history. And we certainly have taken advantage of this information revo- lution. Count how many friends you have that tweet, blog or vlog (video blog, for you social technology phi- listines). If that number is anything greater than zero, then congratula- tions: You have powerful friends who can and have changed social and political discourse by speaking what theysee and hear about in plat- forms that enable immediate world- wide dissemination. In the time I've been writing 750- word columns for this page, count- less people have made their voices heard globally in tweets and blog posts just a few words long. The beauty of this, the ultimate infor- mation age, is that we need not even write a word to direct countless national and international conver- sations - a photo on Flickr show- ing Michael Phelps with a bong or a video on YouTube catching Sen- ate candidate George Allen using a racial slur are definitely worth more than all my 330,000 words. As I write now from this offi- cial platform for the last time, I am pleased to underscore that one does not need to have a newspaper col- umn to be heard. However, I'd like to point out that listening is a very important second component of infi- nite information dissemination in this amazing new world that goes easily ignored. We are all better able to propagate our own opinions, but what good is that if no one chooses to listen to what is being said? We are all focused on getting our own voices out there. Campus activist groups, and indeed political groups across the country, feel the need to take a stand on every issue and then let their voice be heard. Such political speech is their eternal right, and it has recently become a right easily exercised via the Inter- net. And random individuals, sud- denly finding it so easy to blog or tweet, also feel the need to speak out (UCLA student Alexandra Wallace, for example). All of us can and do egins speak more these days, but the trag- edy is thatthere just isn't enough lis- teninggoingon. As a columnist for so many years, I suppose I am guilty of speak- ing too much and not listening enough. I learned the hard way that one need not always have an opinion and be outspoken about it: It is sometimes better to listen, understand and move on without an uttered word. In a culture that prizes opinionated rants as brave spurts of the democratic ideal, it is important to point out that recent- ly, we've all been doing a little too much talking. There simply has not been enough listening, thinking and reflecting. My speaking stint on this page has come to an end. With these last words, my speak- ing stint on this page finally comes to an end, and I move happily into the other, equally important stage of intelligent discourse: listening. Much will be said about issues I think I understand on this page and the hundreds of others like it across America. Like all of you, Iwill listen, question, support and act. But just in case I get antsy, I did sign up for a Twitter account the other day. It's the next big thing, I hear. -lmran Sped canbe reached at galad@umich.edu. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Aida Ali, Will Butler, Ellie Chessen, Michelle DeWitt, Ashley Griesshammer, Melanie Kruvelis, Patrick Maillet, Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Emily Orley, Harsha Panduranga, Teddy Papes, Timothy Rabb, Asa Smith, Seth Soderborg, Andrew Weiner SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@MICHIGANDAILY.COM LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Letters should be fewer than 300 words and must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. We do not print anonymous letters. Send letters to tothedaily@michigandaily.com SETH SODERBORG I Republicans don't want to govern Chen is deeply misinformed on the subject of religion TO THE DAILY: I was deeply disturbed and offended by the methods and language used by Dar-Wei Chen in his article last week (Religion is becoming extinct, 04/05/2011). He obviously is gravely misinformed on the subject of religion, only taking the negative bits and pieces highlighted by today's media. I was so distraught that I wasn't sure where to begin, so I will just jump right in. First off, stories in the beginning of the Old Testament, such as the creation story, Noah's Ark and Jonah and the Whale, serve to teach us about faith and love and devotion to God. The Catholic Church doesn't hold these sto- ries to be historical fact. However, every- thing in the Bible is to be taken seriously, whether as historical fact (Israelite history in the Old Testament and Christian history in the New Testament), allegory (Creation), or symbolism (Noah's Ark). All of the Bible has something to offer. And most of the history in the Bible is evidenced in texts and histori- cal records of other societies. So to say that new religions like Scientology are as wacky as Christianity, which has a 2,000-year-old history and 4,000 years of foundation before that, is completely ignorant. I also take offense to Chen's claim that reli- gion hasn't been good for the world. There are countless churches, synagogues, mosques and religious centers around the world that do an immeasurable number of good deeds - not to mention all the homeless shelters, charities and volunteer organizations around the world with religious roots and backing. There are many examples of this at several places of wor- ship around campus. That's not to say religion hasn't been used as an excuse for violence. It most certainly has since the beginning of time, but to base one's view of a group on the actions of a few radicals is incredibly unfair and irra- tional. The bottom line is religious groups are run by humans, and humans are inherently imperfect and bound to make mistakes. But religion is always there to set us straight. I agree that mankind can be secularly charita- ble, but it's a bold statement to say that we can do charitable works from the goodness of our own hearts and not because of a higher power. That's an ideal secular world that's practi- cally impossible. If there's no higher power to answer to, what's the point of being a good person? Why wouldn't you do everything for your own benefit and to pleasure your own life as much as possible? As a devout and practicing Catholic, I'm not 100 percent certain that my God is the right one. I will even admit that my church hasn't been anywhere close to perfect throughout history. But I will also say that the Catholic Church is a leader in the promotion of social justice and human dignity (just read the papal encyclicals Gaudium et Spes and Humanae Vitae). I would argue that religion is needed now more than ever to keep us in check in light of advancement of technology. We need to be careful where we tread our feet so that we don't start losing respect for ourselves and each other. I can honestly say that instances where I have done "works of God" have been some of the most satisfying times in my life, from a mission trip to Juarez, Mexico to the annu- al Thanksgiving drive back home in New Orleans. And as long as I'm here, I will say with confidence that my religion won't be going extinct anytime soon. Christopher Johnson College ofEngineering senior Aren't we a lucky bunch? We just missed the chance to find out what it's like to live without a government. The federal government nearly closed last week. A zero- hour deal between President Barack Obama and House Republicans spared the country the sight of a shuttered Capitol, closed national parks and an end to trash pick- up in the District of Columbia. How did things get to this point? House Republicans seem to be refusing to govern. It's the House's responsibility to draft budgetary leg- islation. Since Republicans took over at the beginning of this year, they've drafted outlandish budgets that cut programs like the Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children while reducing taxes on the rich. Obama has made it clear that he wouldn't accept cuts that imposed harsh burdens on the needi- est Americans. Democrats in the Senate said "no" to this Republican budget. Rejection should have forced Republicans to make a more moderate proposalThis is how divided government normally works. After the proposed budget returned to the-House, a group of ideologues - mostly freshmen lawmakers elected on a Tea Party platform - hijacked the process. They demanded that the proposed budget cuts be dou- bled - even though Senate Democrats had made it clear that they would not accept the original cuts. When the budget doesn't pass before the fiscal year has begun, the government shuts down. This happened for a few hours in Michigan in 2007. It also happened in 1995, when former President Bill Clinton vetoed a bud- get approved by a newly-Republican Congress. Today's Republican leaders knew that the last government shut- down hurt their party, and they didn't want one to hap- pen again. So, for months, they have kept the federal government going by passing "continuing resolutions" that fund the government for a few weeks at a time. The last resolution expired on Friday. This time, lawmakers barely reached a deal to con- tinue funding the government. Democrats offered last week to cut $33 billion out of the budget - an amount of money equal to what House Speaker John Boehner (R- Ohio) first said he wanted to cut. Because the budget has been so delayed, cutting $33 billion is actually cutting six month of spending. Cutting $1 from the budget in April 2011 has the same impact on government services as cutting $2 in October 2010 would have had over the course of the full fiscal year. The final deal cut $38 billion. This is the largest dis- cretionary spending reduction in U.S. history. Getting a budget passed was an accomplishment, but it shouldn't have happened like this. Instead of a rational debate with all options on the table, Republicans proposed purely partisan cuts knowing that Democrats would refuse to budge on most of them. The lion's share of the deficit comes from obligations like Social Security and Medicare, which must be fully funded each year. Most of the budget fighting has been about smaller programs that the government can choose to fund from year to year. A better Republican leader- ship would work with Democrats to solve the problems caused by long-term obligations. Choosing to fight so bitterly over six months of spending makes it impossible for lawmakers to address greater structural costs. The last serious attempt to restructure one of these major expenses was the health care bill, which Republicans opposed as if their congressional seats depended on campaign contributions from insurance companies. When a company spends more than it has, it looks for ways to make more money. It also cuts costs. Income taxes today are as low as they have been in decades. We saw economic growth under Clinton, when taxes were higher, just as we saw economic growth under almost every president before former President George W. Bush who cut taxes dramatically. Today's Republicans aren't fiscally responsible, they're just anti-tax. Former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan both chose to raise taxes to pay for their spending. In that respect, they understood fiscal responsibility far better than their successors. If the Republicans were serious about fixing spend- ing, they would consider tax raises. They would try to reform Social Security. They would have supported health care reform. Instead, they're fighting tooth and nail to protect the rich and abandon the poor. Seth Soderborg is an LSA junior.