Compromise is key to democracy and progress on a slew of political issues.

Yet the classic compromise today offers the best hope for political progress. The major issues in current legislative debates represent deep divisions on fundamental questions about the role of government, the nature of justice, and the liberties, rights, and responsibilities of citizens. The broad issues on which many Americans generally favor legislative compromise – taxation, government spending, health care, cost controls, job creation, immigration – are unlikely to be addressed at all if legislators hold out for common ground.

So if compromise is to be achieved on these major issues, we must value agreements that are less morally coherent and less politically appealing than those that rest on common ground or an overlapping consensus. The Tax Reform Act of 1986–the most comprehensive tax-reform legislation in modern American history, passed with bipartisan support under the Reagan presidency – was a classic compromise. It combined some measures (eliminating loopholes that favor the wealthy) that reflected liberal principles and others (lowering the marginal rates on top incomes) that violated those principles. The same measure also created a conflict with conservative principles, but in reverse. The Affordable Care Act of 2010–the most comprehensive health care reform in recent American history – was also a classic compromise. Though it was forged within a single party, the compromise displayed conspicuous tensions – between whether the reform should or should not offer a public option, for example.

Governing a democracy without compromise is impossible. To restrict political agreements to common ground or common goods, especially in a polarized partisan environment, is to privilege the status quo, even when all parties agree that reform is needed. Why, then, is compromise so hard when it is so necessary?