"What idea could produce such a far-fetched outcome? In a word, leadership. That is the missing element between fantasy and reality."

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Big Idea 2015: It’s Time for Political Leaders to Work Together

Let’s agree to make progress on each of these five points during 2015 and in return we can continue to fight about everything else as usual

By Adam Goldstein, January 1, 2015

I believe the topic for this month is the one big fantasy for 2015 (well, something like that). So here it is: my idea is that our political leaders actually work together to address the nation’s challenges. As opposed to elected officials acting as if parties that alternate winning by a small margin every two years always have a mandate to have things their own way.

So let’s willingly suspend disbelief for a moment or two and imagine that in 2015, a sudden surge in bipartisan spirit will enable the United States to:

• Recommit to educating our children so we remain competitive in the world economy for decades to come
• Invest in our failing infrastructure so that in addition to preserving our bridges, roads and buildings for the long term we will promote employment for the short term
• Pass budgets, manage debt ceilings and fund essential programs without histrionics and embarrassing brinksmanship that reduces the world’s respect for our principles of democracy
• Take advantage of an unforeseen window of opportunity that lower energy prices and greater domestic production have afforded us to reduce our dependence on oil, especially imported oil
• Motivate job creation by businesses both large and small to spur economic growth

What idea could produce such a far-fetched outcome? In a word, leadership. That is the missing element between fantasy and reality. As long we have a two party political system where each side believes it has all of the right answers and the other side has all of the wrong answers, the gap persists. But my fantasy need only stretch so far. Let’s agree to make progress on each of the above five points during 2015 and in return we can continue to fight like cats and dogs about everything else as per usual. If we achieve this limited but essential success next year, then let’s pick five more areas to cooperate on in 2016. Oh, sorry, that’s a Presidential election year. Maybe we’ll just shoot for odd numbered years until we establish a favorable trend.

For those of you who find this “idea” of mine utterly unrealistic to the point of absurdity, please be advised that this is only my second most outlandish fantasy for 2015. My first, which I did not have the guts to write about, is that the Philadelphia Eagles will win the Super Bowl next year. It’s a privilege to write for LinkedIn and I didn’t want to risk my readership writing about something that could never happen.

This Influencer post originally appeared on LinkedIn.
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