When a few dozen Republican pragmatists in the Senate finally roused themselves and stood up to the Tea Party this week, the budget crisis quickly came to an end. Now it's time for them to lead their party to accept the challenge President Obama issued on Thursday and permanently change the way Congress does business. Confrontational tactics failed the Republicans when Mr. Obama stood up to their demands, but rational negotiations — on ways to promote the public interest, not the agenda of interest groups — can still succeed.
Just hours after he signed a bill reopening government and ending the threat of default, Mr. Obama told Republicans that he and other Democrats were willing to talk about anything. No one is under any illusion that the vast differences between the parties have suddenly been bridged, he said, but the defeat of blackmail clears the way for a return to the traditional processes of democracy.
"There's no good reason why we can't govern responsibly, despite our differences, without lurching from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis," he said. If lawmakers would only ignore the shrill voices of lobbyists and what he charitably described as "professional activists who profit from conflict," they might hear the voices of Americans who are clamoring for job creation, better education and long-term prosperity.
The place to start that conversation is in a Senate-House conference on the 2014 budget, long resisted by Republicans, which was included in Wednesday's deal. It's easy to be cynical and assume that nothing will come out of it, just as previous talks and the supercommittee created by the 2011 budget act failed. It's hard, after all, to forget that all the Republican presidential candidates last year said that they could not accept a budget deal that cut spending by 10 times as much as it raised taxes because they could not accept any tax increase.
But the defeat of the hard-liners this week could change that calculation. Some Republicans, who may be eager to show a disgusted public that their party hasn't become completely tone-deaf, could use the budget conference to practice a new flexibility.
The most obvious area of agreement is replacing the devastating sequester cuts, put in place by the 2011 budget act, with a mix of smarter spending reductions and revenue increases. Many Republicans have objected to the spending cuts, particularly the deeper reductions to defense spending that are scheduled to begin in January. The possibility for each side to get some of what it wants remains strong.
What should not happen is a proposal made by Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, on Thursday to trade long-term cuts in entitlement programs for short-term increases in domestic spending. As the majority leader, Harry Reid, quickly made clear, entitlement changes can't be discussed until Republicans accept the need for tax increases. But that doesn't rule out finding areas of common ground in hammering out a 2014 budget.
The other two legislative areas that Mr. Obama said were ripe for an agreement were immigration reform and a farm bill that restores the proper level of spending on food stamps.
Progress in Washington doesn't have to remain elusive if Republicans return to an understanding, accepted by earlier generations, that political disagreement does not have to be destructive of government. "You don't like a particular policy or a particular president, then argue for your position," Mr. Obama said. "Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But don't break it, don't break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building."
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