With the dire straits our nation currently finds itself in, President Obama and Congress have scrambled to put together a plan to halt America’s financial crisis.Disregarding the stakes, Congress descended again into what has become its only mode of operation — entrenched partisan warfare.Despite several olive branches Obama offered to the Republican Party, the stimulus package he proposed was fought bitterly at every turn and was eventually passed along strictly partisan lines.Yet the Republicans are in no way the only ones at fault here.  Democratic Congressional leaders — specifically Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi — has blatantly cast aside any pretense of cooperation.”Washington seems consumed in the process argument of bipartisanship, when the rest of the country says they need this bill,” Pelosi told reporters at a Democratic retreat. “We must have a bill [quickly].”Apparently Pelosi believes that bipartisanship is an abstraction that must be discarded in favor of practical concerns. This is a dangerous position for someone of her power to hold.Bipartisanship is a concept that gets tossed around a lot in political discussions, and it can sometimes seem like an ideal with little practical value. But Pelosi and the rest of Congress would be well served to strive for it.The argument Pelosi and many Democrats make is that Republicans have had their turn to lead, and they failed, and now it’s their turn.
“Yes we passed the bill. Yes we won the election,”  Pelosi added. In her mind, the Democratic victories in November amount to a mandate, and Republicans, by challenging the party’s decisions, are ignoring the will of the people.Unfortunately for the speaker, this isn’t how politics works.One of the most fundamental truths of a two-party system is that the two are supposed to balance. Instead of trying to pass a bill along rigid partisan ideological lines, the two parties should attempt a compromise.The way Congress has ran the past few years, “compromise” has become a dirty word.The unspoken arrogance behind Pelosi’s disregard for non-partisan cooperation is the underlying belief that her party is absolutely right on every issue.On the surface, this seems logical — if someone has a position on something, it’s no stretch to believe that position is right.The problem isn’t with believing you’re right, but with believing you’re perfect.The purpose of an opposition party is to keep the party in power honest, to find and reveal flaws in a plan, then work to rectify those flaws.When the party in power disregards the protests of the minority, it has no check on its ideology or practice.  Nobody knows this better than Pelosi, who led her party through the Bush years, where that administration and its loyal Congress trampled the Democrats and proceeded to enforce partisan policy decisions – policy decisions that led to the mess the Democrats now inherit.As Einstein famously said, “insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.” If Pelosi — who should know better than anybody the consequences and frustrations of partisan power — really wants to fix problems, she should put aside her history with the Republicans and reach across the aisle.Republicans must break their long-held habits and do the same.Bipartisanship is more than a process argument – it’s a necessity. It’s the best way to make sure the policies our government pursues are sound – and the best way to remedy the ills that were caused largely by a lack of cooperation in the first place.Matthew Albright is a 20-year old English and political science major from Baton Rouge.——Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]