Are we more partisan than ever before? No!! and here is why.

I am 66 and fully remember the politics of the 1960. My first year in college began in September of 1963. JFK had been murdered by the mob, using poor old Oswald as their fall guy. And in November of 1964, the nation voted LBJ to his first full term as president.

I was a Democrat, back in those days, a George McGovern Democrat, no less. I did not protest the Vietnam War , but, I also, never understood why we were there. More to the point of this post, I remember what "they" did to Johnson's opponent in the 1964 election. His name was Barry Goldwater, Senator Barry Goldwater. I believe he was from Arizona. Looking back, I would put Goldwater forth as the first of the modern day conservative politicians. The modern day Democrat strategy of "fear politics" was borne out of their campaign against the Senator. I remember a T.V. ad against Barry with a video of an expanding atomic mushroom cloud looming large over his shoulder. Then there were the first ads declaring the Republican's plan to "dismantle Social Security." Of course, neither picture was even remotely true, but the Democrat's campaign of fear worked and Goldwater won only 6 states in one of the most lopsided elections in history. My point? You can't get more partisan than 1964.

Then came Reagan. It is rather humorous, to me, as I watch the Dems praise Reagan and try to co-opt his presidency. The facts of the matter are very, very different. With the Dems in Reagan's day, there was this constant barrage of political propaganda, making Reagan appear as a "war-monger," a man who would "get us all killed." He was the first political "cowboy," a "loose cannon" running around the world facing down the Russians and intensifying the cold war. Honestly, he was hated by the Left every bit as much as George Bush. Years later, Reagan has been credited with ending the cold war and the Bush war tactics are being used by the current Democrat Administration.

So, why all this partisan bickering? The answer borders on the "simpleton." It has to do with the difference between an official annual budget versus a series of CR's (Continuing Resolutions). It is that simple.

When the 111th congress was swept into power along with Obama, the Dems and their new congress, functioned out of George Bush's last budget, Fiscal Year 2009, which ended nine months into Obama's first year (September 30 of 2010). Since that time, we are constantly "running out of money" and that is directly related to the fact that we no longer run government out of a prepared budget.

What happens when it is "budget time?" Well, we have a political fight and then it is over.

Since Obama, we have not had a budget. Not one. And, we are just beginning our third Obama fiscal year . . . . . . . . . . . . all without a budget. First time in history. Three consecutive years without a stinking budget.

In its place, we have "continuing resolutions." A CR is a temporary "fix" that allows the government to function for a period of time. Because they are temporary, because they [typically] do not increase agency budgets beyond the baseline,** the congress has to have a budget fight several times a year . . . hence, the illusion that we are "more partisan" than ever before. Understand what I am saying: instead of having one budgetary fight per year, we have them every two or three months.

With the new congress, come 2013 ( should the GOP win that election) , there will be an immediate change in the level of partisanship because that congress, the 113th, will promptly begin work on a budget proposal. Of course, that budget will not go into effect until October 1 of 2013, but things will begin to settle down almost immediately, all because we will have only one fight per year rather than four or five.

None of this present time budgetary angst is the fault of the GOP. Period. They - the GOP - are not the ones who want to govern without a budget. They are not the ones who schedule a political fight every two or three months.

In construction, we have a rule: the simplest answer is usually the best answer. That is not more true than in this specific matter. Simple is good. Increasing the fight schedule is bad.

** "baseline" budgeting allows for approximately an 8% automatic increase in federal funding per year, per agency. In some cases, this baseline is 3 or 4 percent, but in most, it appears that this automatic rate of increase is between six and eight percent. Think about this, for a moment. Obama is talking about cutting 4 trillion out of government spending over the course of the next 10 years. If these were real cuts, he would have only effected the baseline. Government would continue to expand and our national debt would continue to increase. After his "cuts," our national annual budget expenditure - without any legislation increasing the size and scope of government, 10 years from now, will be more than 8 trillion per year, up from 3.8 trillion, today.

That increase is "structural." It cannot be avoided. I believe the only way to balance our annual budget(s), truly balance the budget, is to slow the rate of increase via program reductions and the elimination of waste and fraud, to a point in the historical cycle that allows for an ever increasing economy to over take our expenses. Again, simple is good.