DIVIDED GOVERNMENT. A GOOD THING?

Amidst all the recent bad news and pessimism, there may (and I emphasize the word "may") be a bit of good political news on the horizon. We may be heading toward a divided federal government, where the US president and at least one house of congress are controlled by different political parties.

FiveThirtyEight, a feature on the ABC News website, predicts with a relatively high degree of certainty that after the upcoming November 6 midterm election, Democrats will control the House of Representatives, while Republicans will retain control of the Senate. With Republican President Donald Trump heading the executive branch, this will definitely fulfill the definition of "divided government."

And why is this a good thing?  Two words, "balanced budget." The last time we had a run of balanced budgets was 1998 to 2001, all presented by Democratic President Bill Clinton while under the constitutional restraint of a Republican House and Senate. It seems divided governments are capable of doing what single party governments (where the president and congress are both controlled by one political party) are not.

Of course, it doesn't always work. Democratic President Barack Obama had the Republicans in charge of at least one house of congress for the majority of his presidency, yet he never presented a balanced budget.  However, at least in recent US history, a balanced budget has never been presented and approved by a single party government.

Now, I may be grasping at straws here, but I'm determined to find optimism where I can. Perhaps, with President Trump and a Republican Senate stopping new, expensive programs from starting up, and a Democratic House stopping expensive tax cuts, we can at least move in the correct economic direction: toward a balanced federal budget.