Is America's two-party system broken? In Congress--and in the country as a whole--Republicans and Democrats can't seem to agree on much of anything these days.

• Position: DEBATE

YES

Our two-party political process is broken, and the public seems to know it: A recent poll found that only 14 per cent of Americans believe the federal government works.

Last summer, Congress came to the brink of defaulting on our national debt because of the inability of Republicans and Democrats to reach an agreement on reducing the federal deficit. Even though the debt ceiling* has routinely been raised countless times during both Republican and Democratic administrations, it took a crisis situation to force our leaders to act.

Governing difficulties like this aren't unique to the Obama administration. President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, wasn't able to pass a health-care reform plan in 1994 or a climate-change agreement in 1997. President George W. Bush, a Republican, couldn't pass Social Security reform in 2004 or immigration reform in 2007. These are all significant national challenges that most agree must be addressed, and-with the exception of health-care reform, which Congress passed in 2010--they've been left dangling.

Candidates today spend more energy winning the support of their own party bases (conservatives in the Republican Party and liberals in the Democratic Party) than on appealing to a broad cross section of voters. Appealing to the party base, rather than to more centrist interests, discourages deliberation, distorts the policy-making process, and encourages the two parties to compete rather than cooperate on policy solutions.

America has real problems, and the longer our federal government fails to tackle them, the worse they're getting. We need a political system that offers pragmatic solutions to our pressing challenges. It's time we gave third-party candidates a real chance to participate.

--DARRELL WEST

The Brookings Institution

NO

As fashionable as it's become to say our political system is broken, it's actually working the way it's supposed to.

American government is designed to be adversarial. The Senate checks the House of Representatives, and vice versa. The president can veto legislation, but the Senate can reject judicial appointments...