Political Parties Pros and Cons

Abstract

What is the need of a Political Party? While some people believe that they are very necessary, others believe that our country would be better off without them. I myself am torn between the two. There are pros and cons to both sides. However, ultimately I think that the presence of political parties is unfortunately necessary.

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Political Parties: Good or Bad?

Balance and fairness are what keep our government going today. It takes people with different views on issues to find a happy median that would please as many people as possible. The political parties are just that. Each political party is made up of numerous, like minded individuals that present themselves as a single entity. Where they stand on issues is based around their combined ideologies. If a single party was to take over the government, all of their beliefs could come in to play in shaping the way our country is ran. That can be detrimental to all of those that have a different opinion on how things should be. That’s where another political party comes in. Their ideas and beliefs differ from the opposing parties and in order to maintain a working government, a compromise must be made.

There are 2 major political parties today, Republicans and Democrats. These 2 parties occupy most of the seats in the government. While there are other small 3rd party groups, we will focus on the 2 main parties. In the past, the Republicans and Democrats have always had different views on certain issues. This made it easy for voters as there was a well-defined line between candidates. That line is becoming less and less clear in today’s political parties. Back in 1996, Republican Bob Dole and Democrat and current President Bill Clinton had identical views on issues such as tax cuts and balanced budget (Hayes, E). With opposing parties in so much agreement, who to vote for could be a problem. What if you were Republican but didn’t like stance that your representative took? Would you still vote Republican just because it is your party or would you explore another party to vote for?

While it is a good thing that political parties agree on issues, sometimes even a compromise is out of the question. In 2013 the United States was faced with just that. With the Federal government reaching its debt ceiling there was a standoff between the Republicans and Democrats on whether or not to raise the ceiling (Abramsky, S. 2013). With no compromise in site, the government shut down. With the exception of a few areas of the government such as the military, Social Security and Medicare, the government ceased to operate. Funding for WIC, Head Start schools and other programs that were relied on by the lower classes in our society were cut off. Millions of people went without benefits not knowing if and when they might start up again (Abramsky, S. 2013). This shows the scary amount of power that a political party has.

Even with deadlocks, it is important to have our political party system. Within these individual parties come ideas on making our government better. The bigger the party the more ideas it came present. Although you might not agree with them, and neither does the opposing parties, they are ideas none the less. Agreements cam be reached on the best ways to implement new ideas to benefits as many as possible. An idea such as rolling back tax cuts and using that surplus to help pay down the deficit was used by John Kerry and John Edwards (Chait, J. 2005). You may not agree with a tax increase but you do agree with paying down the deficit. Opposing parties can help refine those ideas to help do the most good and the least amount of damage.

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In conclusion, while the political party system does have its setbacks and can sometimes have catastrophic results on the people, it is important that they exist. Without organized groups, our country would fall apart and no one would be in agreement on anything.