Uje cis ton post February 27, 2013 Ending the permanent crisis By EJ. Dionne Jr. This has to stop. Ever since they took control of the House of Representatives in 2011, Republicans have made journeys to the fiscal brink as commonplace as summertime visits to the beach or the ballpark. The country has been put through a series of destructive showdowns over budget issues we once resolved through the normal give-and-take of negotiations. The old formula held that when government was divided between the parties, the contending sides should try to "meet in the middle." But the current Republican leadership doesn't know the meaning of the word "middle," so intimidated by the tea party has it become. Here is a way out of permanent crisis: President Obama should demand the repeal of all artificial deadlines and tell both houses of Congress that he won't make further proposals until each actually passes a replacement to the sequester — not a gimmick or something that looks like an alternative, but the real thing. With everyone on the record, normal discussions could begin, and Washington would no longer look like the set of a horror movie in which a new catastrophe lurks around every corner. The solution to the problems of democracy is more democracy, so let both houses hold votes on all the potential remedies — on Obama's own proposal, on packages put forward by Democrats Chris Van Hollen in the House and Patty Murray in the Senate, and on anything the Republicans care to proffer, including the sequester itself. Let the House Republican majority show that it can come up with a substantial alternative or, failing that, allow a plan to pass with a mix of Republican and Democratic votes. In the Senate, ditch the unconstitutional abuse of the filibuster and let a plan pass by simple- majority vote. Misuse of the filibuster is a central cause of Washington's contorted policymaking. Let's end the permanent budget crisis by governing ourselves though the