EDITORIAL: Pat Tiberi took the right stand on ‘deal’: Mansfield News Journal, January 6, 2013

By Mansfield News Journal

With much work left to do to avoid economic disaster for our country, we were happy to see Pat Tiberi take a more collaborative approach with his “fiscal cliff” vote.

Tiberi is new to Richland County and we have been waiting to see what kind of action we can expect from him in Washington.

We are in general agreement with the premise that this “cliff deal” failed to solve the larger problem.

“Do I like everything in this bill? No. It makes me sick to my stomach that we couldn’t get the Senate or the president to deal with spending cuts in this bill. But if we had not acted, every American that works would have seen their tax rates go up. In fact, it would have been the largest tax increase in history,” he said in a statement last week.

Likewise, both of Ohio’s U.S. senators - hometowner Sherrod Brown, and Republican Rob Portman - voted in favor of the Senate bill Tuesday morning.

“It represents an important down payment in reducing the deficit and getting America’s fiscal house in order,” Brown said. “It also prevents dangerous cuts to Social Security and reduces the deficit by asking millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share.”

Still, he admitted it was not perfect.

Portman said the deal “stops huge tax increases from being imposed on the overwhelming majority of Ohio’s families and job creators.”

No one should be overenthusiastic about the deal worked out on Tuesday. And nearly everyone seems to aggree that the biggest sticking point is that it does nothing to reduce spending.

However, the deal did accomplish one thing. It gave us a definitive picture of where our elected leaders stand on economic policy.

When politicians take such a hard-line stance that it brings our country to a standstill, it serves no purpose. It is easy to throw up your hands and tout the party line.

What we need are leaders who can find a way to work together to fix problems.

We encourage our legislators to take the same approach Tiberi took last week, that is, look at this deal as multifaceted, with more work still to be done.

“We’ll continue to work to reduce the debt. Preventing higher taxes was tonight’s success; the next success will be cutting spending,” he said.

This is not the time to stand firm, it is the time to move forward.

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