The RP: America Needs Leadership…NOW

As we fast approach the fiscal cliff, The RP has dedicated his latest column in The Huffington Post to rallying Americans behind No Labels’ demands for leadership by our elected officials.

Here’s an excerpt:

The last couple of weeks have been littered with false starts and steps backward in fiscal cliff negotiations. America needs its leaders to find a solution now more than ever, but real leaders have not yet emerged from the Capitol or the White House.

The American people are tired of short-term solutions that fail to solve any actual problems. We need real leadership in this country that can find a way to get things done.

Right now our leaders are unable to bridge the partisan divide that keeps government from solving problems. That’s why No Labels, a movement of more than 600,000 Democrats, Republicans, and independents who want to end congressional gridlock, calls for five principles of leadership to be present in the fiscal cliff negotiations. These principles are:

1. Tell the people the full truth. In order for Americans to make informed decisions, we need to know the details — all of them. If our lawmakers don’t tell us the enormity of the problems we face, how can we begin to solve them? When telling us the truth, lawmakers have to agree on the facts. There can’t be two different sets of numbers in the search for solutions. It was Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan who said that while every man is entitled to his own opinions, he is not entitled to his own facts.

2. Govern for the future. If we can’t find solutions to our economic issues, we put our potential for growth and opportunity at stake. America’s tradition of upward mobility and ingenuity is threatened by our lingering economic uncertainty. If we want to convince the rest of the world that we are still a leader, we must prove that we can overcome the petty partisan issues and take control of our fate.

Click here to read the full column.