A multi-trillion-dollar unfunded liability in Social Security could easily be fixed if the two parties would make simple compromises, a former chief of staff to President George W. Bush said Thursday at Texas A&M.
But that's not happening because of a breakdown in trust and a Washington culture in which politicians no longer socialize with members of the other party, Joshua Bolten said at the Bush School of Government and Public Service.
"People in both parties know how to solve the problem," said Bolten, now managing director of Rock Creek Global Advisors. "But no one has the courage to step out and propose those changes because they're worried they're going to get demagogued by the other guy."
Bolten's talk was titled "Political Polarization: Its Causes and Its Cure," which was moderated by Andrew Card, the Bush School's acting dean and also a former Bush chief of staff who preceded Bolten.
Bolten singled out his successor, President Barack Obama's first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, as "one of the absolute worst" when it came to harsh, foul dialogue.
"He was literally unable to go a full sentence without dropping an F-bomb," Bolten said of the Democrat who now is mayor of Chicago.
But he also praised Emanuel as someone who, after he got profanity-laced bouts of screaming out of his system, was willing to compromise.
"He was not one of those people who saw politics as a strictly zero sum game," Bolten said. "Those are the people who are difficult to deal with, even though they may be polite in public."
Before the talk, Bolten was presented with the Good Governance Award by James Griffin, the director of the Bush School's Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics and Public Policy.
Bolten, who is a visiting professor at Princeton University, also gave the audience a 20-minute crash course on the increasing debt in the federal budget, which he called "the greatest problem facing the United States."
Card pointed to Bolten as an example of what the cure is to polarization: "He listens well and he invites others to listen well, and that's something that doesn't happen often in Washington, D.C."
Also during the 43rd president's administration, Bolten served as director of the Office of Management and Budget and deputy chief of staff for policy. He also has served as a lawyer for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Senate Finance Committee and the State Department.
The event was part of the ConocoPhillips White House Lecture Series, which aims to provide a better understanding of the workings of the White House by hosting current or former administration officials.
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