A Prisoner's Dilemma in the 5th District

On Friday, I attended the Batten school debate between 5th district congressional candidates Leslie Cockburn and Denver Riggleman. While they discussed a wide range of issues, one issue in particular stood out to me as a prisoner’s dilemma: the deficit. Riggleman accused Cockburn’s proposed healthcare policy (adding Medicare to the healthcare exchange) of greatly increasing the deficit. Throughout the debate, Cockburn brought up the 2017 Republican tax bill that is expected to add more than $1 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, as well as high military spending in the Republican budget. Let’s say that Democrats in Congress are Party A and Republicans in Congress are Party B. Each party wants to benefit electorally from decreasing the deficit. Party A could try to resolve the deficit issue on its own, gaining votes for Party A and costing votes for Party B. Party B could also try to resolve the deficit issue on its own, gaining votes for Party B and costing votes for Party A. Both parties could cooperate to decrease or at least maintain the deficit, resulting in some electoral gains, but fewer gains for each party than Party A or Party B trying to resolve it on its own. Finally, both parties could defect from cooperation, acting independently and potentially harming the economy from a government shutdown, for example. While each party would benefit most from decreasing the deficit on its own, both parties continue to act cooperatively to maintain a high deficit, preventing effective action. Given the resolution of this prisoner's dilemma, the Democratic and Republican parties continue to propose and enact policies that increase the deficit.