BY MICHAEL  S. JOHNSON

 Do you ever get into a discussion and get so bogged down in specifics, you forget what the central argument was about in the first place?

 It happens around the dinner table, but unfortunately it is occurring more often in our public dialogue on critical policy issues, making debate less civil and solutions more difficult to reach.

We can’t see the forest for the trees, as the cliché so accurately reminds us.

The debt-ceiling debate was a classic example, but it was followed immediately by an even better one.

The Federal Aviation Administration, like most other federal programs and agencies, requires Congress to reauthorize it on a periodic basis.  The agency was last reauthorized in 2007.  Since then, Congress has not seen fit to re-examine the agency’s mission and reauthorize it with a 21st century mission and renewed congressional mandate.  Instead the FAA has been given temporary leases on life, according to the Wall Street Journal, 20 times—count ‘em—20 times since 2007.

What this means is that the agency has flipped and flopped around like a big bass on the deck of the fishing boat for the past four years, without clear direction, long-term planning, consistency, reliability and a predictable stream of funding.

The House and Senate worked on a new authorization this year, but failed to reach agreement, again, and so on July 23, the FAA had to impose a partial shutdown, furloughing 3,800 FAA workers, closing construction projects affecting an estimated 70,000 workers in construction and related fields, and depriving the Federal government of an estimated $200 million a week in lost tax revenues–$200 million a week–enough to pay for 8 clinical trials of potential life-saving drugs; enough to build a new bridge or fund thousands of college educations or provide better textbooks in every public school in the country. 

Congress decided to go home without reauthorizing the FAA.  The  explanations turned into excuses and soon devolved into an unbecoming display of finger-pointing and he-said-she-said charges and counter charges. 

The argument that ensued was not about why the legislative process broke down—again–or why presumably dedicated elected officials couldn’t come to terms with an alarming reality:  Our political process is so dysfunctional, we are in danger of losing permanently the greatness which was once ours and failing the experiment in self rule that a world once wanted to emulate. 

 The discussion was still  about union rules and small airports in small towns, and whether the Administration exaggerated the number of people thrown out of work.  Insurmountable issues?  Hardly.  But those issues brought down an entire agency of government and caused 3,800 human beings to hit the pavement, without warning, without a paycheck, with real fears they may not be able to pay the mortgage or their car insurance or their child’s college tuition payment. 

The central issue was and is the welfare of those people, not the airport in Nye, Nevada, or how you count votes in a union election; not to suggest those issues don’t have merit or aren’t worth a vigorous debate.  They were, up until the time people had to suffer.  Then those issues should have been resolved.  Bam!  Done!   The principal players should have—gasp!—compromised.  Yes, compromised.  Compromise.  Not a bad word; not the work of the weak or timid or the less committed to belief; not capitulation by the less pure;  but the performance of real courage in the act of governing. The weak don’t compromise; the strong do.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was relentless in his drive to bring the discussion back to the central issue of governance and people.  He deserves a medal.   He got it right and pressed both sides for a solution, which he finally got from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.  Reid brought the Senate back to pass the House version of the authorization.  Reid had to choke on the provisions the House included on the small town airports and the union organizing.  He didn’t compromise.  He just gave in, but for the right reasons.

We must remind ourselves every hour of every day that this kind of governing should not happen and it should not be allowed to continue.  Those who govern us must assume responsibility for the dysfunction, quit making excuses for it, and fix what is badly broken.   It’s no secret what’s wrong.  It’s no secret what it will take to make the repairs.  What is missing is the will, the leadership and the courage to do it.