Cooperation

          “Divided, there is little we can do--- for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder” (Kennedy 740). 
          Cooperation is the key to fixing the economy. I am sure that everyone here has experienced cooperation. How many times did our mothers tell us to play nicely and cooperate with our friends and siblings? As children, we never dreamed of a world where we were not expected to cooperate. But the time has come to acknowledge that in the adult world, we do not see much cooperation. We especially do not see much of it in the government. We have not yet bounced back from the Recession because of that lack of cooperation. But if we show politicians our desire for cooperation in the government, then together we can erase all traces of the Recession. 
          We do not normally link together the words cooperation and Congress. How many times have we heard politicians running for office promise to reach across the aisle, and cooperate with the other party as well as their own? Unfortunately, while they have cooperated at times, politicians usually revert back to form. They vote along their party’s lines, and they go out of their way to make life for the opposite party difficult. It does not matter whether the politicians identify themselves as Democratic or Republican. Each party acts the same way. With every refusal to meet the other party, with every determination to vote the opposite way of other party, and with every decision to not listen to what the other party has to say, politicians have pushed cooperation further and further down. I have no doubt that the members of Congress want to fix the economy. They will not stop talking about the economy. But they insist on going about fixing it in the wrong way. Without cooperation, members of Congress take an all or nothing approach to governing the country. Without cooperation, real reforming legislation never gets passed. In the Great Depression, this same problem would have occurred if President Roosevelt had not stepped up to keep Congress in line. Congress would have bickered as usual while the country spiraled deeper into its depression. But Roosevelt managed to make Congress work together, and pass many laws and reforms to help ease the Depression (“American President: Franklin Delano Roosevelt”). In the end these laws might not have completely fixed the economy, but they certainly helped to keep it from getting worse. World War II was a great triumph for the cause of cooperation. World War II not only ended the Great Depression because it created jobs, but also because it caused the people of the country to finally cooperate with each other. 

Photo from the Library of Congress

           The Founding Fathers built this country on the premise of cooperation. Today we need to invoke some of their spirit, and we can accomplish this by focusing on the values Americans hold so dear. In order to shake ourselves loose from the crushing weight of economic uncertainty we must stand united, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike. Cooperation will not come easily, nor will it stay easily. Listening to others takes effort. Working together takes effort. Listening to and working with people you do not always agree with takes even more effort. But listening and working together have great importance in ensuring a healthy economy. 
          We should consider cooperation especially important right now because Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives in the last election. Before that, the Democrats had the majority of both the House and Senate, and even when they had the majority they had a hard time agreeing on bills. When the Democrats controlled the House and the Senate, they had a tendency to leave the Republicans out of discussions. Now one of two things will happen in the coming Congressional session. Either the congressmen will learn to work together to fix the economy, or they will accomplish nothing because no one will agree on a course of action. The former option is highly preferable to the latter option. If we want the government to understand that we want more cooperation, then we need to take the initiative and tell the government. We need to send letters and e-mails to our representatives, to our senators, and to the president, telling all of them that they need to work in cooperation with each other. If we all speak with one loud voice, then they cannot avoid hearing our message. This method may seem a little old fashioned, but what other way could we use that would convey to the politicians the enormity of the situation? How else will we show them just how many people are fed up with the childish bickering?