Congressman Michael Capuano indicted political zealots and a largely "checked out" American public as partially responsible for the current shutdown in Washington and urged a return to compromise at a senior management luncheon Monday at a banking conference in Framingham sponsored by Banker & Tradesman.
"The word compromise has become a dirty word," Capuano told a crowd at The Bank Summit. "You’ve got to talk to each other and try to find common ground. You’ve got to not hate each other for having different views."
Capuano pulled no punches during his remarks, fully aware that many in his audience would disagree with him on subjects like healthcare, the shutdown, the re-opening of national parks and increasing regulation of the banking industry. He even invited his audience and constituents to argue with him, but urged bankers to be more specific in their complaints and not simply gripe about regulatory burden.
"The country has become obsessed with regulating minutiae. For a country that was once the home of free markets, we’re now the most regulated in the world," one audience member said to Capuano.
"First of all, this country has never had a free market," Capuano replied, before asserting that regulations "have to be more detailed because your business has become more detailed."
"Details matter," he said.
Questioned on the subject of credit union taxation, Capuano echoed a popular refrain among the banking industry, saying that smaller, more traditional credit unions should retain their tax-exempt status, but the handful of larger credit unions that are essentially competing with banks ought to be taxed and regulated as banks are.
But the government shutdown dominated the focus of Capuano’s remarks. He did not blame the Tea Party – which Capuano credited for organizing, electing its leaders and doing exactly what it set out to do: shut down the government – but rather the majority of Americans who did not bother to turn out and vote.
"The American public is checked out," he said. "It’s because you’re too lazy. It’s because you don’t care. It’s because you prefer to complain… More of you don’t participate than participate."
And Capuano said that although he didn’t agree with 100 percent of the Affordable Care Act, he had voted for it anyway because he believed it would do more good than harm and still maintained his support for the bill.
It would take time to work out the kinks, he said, but democracy is not meant to work overnight.
"The system is rigged intentionally by the founders not to move too quickly," he said.
Replying to an audience member’s question about whether he would vote for a bill to re-open national parks during the shutdown, Capuano reiterated his support for social programs and said that voting for such a bill would be tantamount to capitulating to Republican demands.
"The world won’t come to an end if somebody can’t get into a national park tomorrow," he said. "But it will come to an end for some families if they can’t get affordable housing."
