Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

The federal government is shuttered. Are there round-the-clock intense negotiations to find a way to reopen? Are leaders proposing new innovative ways to turn the lights back on?  Is there a sense of urgency? Is the president tirelessly practicing “his art of the deal”? 

No, none of that’s happening.

The Senate convenes to vote on both Republican and Democratic funding proposals, knowing neither will pass. There’s no urgency and little concern. After the gavel, they flee to sympathetic shout-shows to point fingers, hoping Americans will blame the other side. 

The House approved a partisan “take it or leave it” continuing resolution and left town for a two-week vacation. House Speaker Mike Johnson assured us all “We’ve done our job.” They haven’t.

President Donald Trump fumes more about the NFL playing “sissy football” because of its new kickoff rule, than he worries about the 44 million Americans who’ll see monthly premiums double (or worse) for Affordable Health Care (ACA) coverage if subsidies are allowed to expire at the end of the year. Democrats refuse to provide votes for a continuing resolution unless the subsidies are re-negotiated. That’s the stalemate.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Johnson solemnly swear they’ll negotiate in good faith to keep the ACA subsidies, despite Senate and House Republicans trying to kill it more than 50 times. 

When Democrats hear promises from Thune or Johnson, they think about Lucy holding the football and Charlie Brown falling flat time after time. Democrats worry Trump will gleefully let the subsidies expire to finally put the ACA in its grave.

All this shutdown chaos reminds me of the old TV ad with the tagline, “That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works.” I’m certainly not an authority on jump-starting the federal government, but I have negotiated some tough agreements. Here are some suggestions about prying the federal government doors open again.

All the decision makers need to be at the negotiating table. If one is AWOL, a deal is impossible. Without everybody there, getting a deal is like negotiating with the rain to stop. It won’t work, and you’ll get soaked in the process. That means the president needs to be off the golf course and at the table.

So far there hasn’t been any serious negotiation. Negotiating in public doesn’t work. Both sides will spend time performing or their base instead of working on real solutions.

I learned early on, if you demonize the other side, you eventually need to make a deal with the devil. When you make that deal, your own constituency won’t trust it and will regard you as selling out.  Democratic leaders should stop calling Trump “unhinged,” “unstable,” and a “fascist.” Trump needs to stop calling the party he needs for a deal “the enemy within.”

Both sides need to listen. This adage holds true for negotiations: “We should listen twice as much as we speak.” They don’t have to agree, but they have to listen instead of thinking of a quick response. Silence is a powerful negotiating tactic, because it often tempts the other side to reveal more than they want to. 

I’ve discovered two things about compromise. First, it shows strength. That strength allows things to move forward. Second, compromise doesn’t mean sacrificing principles. It means giving a little to reach a lasting agreement.

What would America’s Founders say about a government shutdown? Since I can’t channel George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, I did the next best thing. I asked AI. “Though they could not foresee the specific mechanism of a government shutdown, the founders would likely view it as a failure of compromise and a dangerous result of political factionalism.

In other words, “That’s not how any of this works.”  

---

Editor’s note from Laura Belin: At this writing, the U.S. House of Representatives is not scheduled to have any votes before October 20.