The Chickens of Congress
During the end of summer 2011, the United States government faced a debt crisis – in order to operate it needed to raise the debt ceiling, or the maximum amount of money the government can owe. Congress is commonly divided on budget plans, resulting in a game of chicken. In this game, a political party can either “swerve” and accept the negotiated compromise, or stay “straight” and reject it in favor of one that fits its ideals more closely. If neither party eventually gives in, the government will shut down – an obviously negative outcome.
| Swerve | Straight | |
| Swerve | 0,0 | -1,1 |
| Straight | 1,-1 | -10,-10 |
Typically, the fear of a shutdown motivates members of Congress to serve early in the debate. However, during the budget crisis of 2011, there were several external factors that created a very different game. First, both houses of Congress were almost completely evenly split between Republicans and Democrats – since there was not a clearly dominant party, neither thought they should have to give in to the other. Second, many recently elected “Tea-Party” members of Congress were so opposed to current government spending that they would prefer a shutdown over another, in their opinion, unreasonable compromise.
| Swerve (Dem) | Straight | |
| Swerve (Rep) | -11,0 | -11,1 |
| Straight | 1,-1 | -10,-10 |
In this game, the only Nash Equilibrium is now for Democrats to swerve and Republicans to go straight. In fact, going straight is a dominant strategy for Republicans, which makes negotiating with them extremely frustrating. A limitation of this game is that while many Republicans did prefer a shutdown over a compromise, most did not. However, if the Tea Party continues to gain influence in the Republican Party and the next budget debate even more closely resembles the above game, the Democratic Party will have no meaningful choice.