The two-party system and the checks and balances it provides by separating executive, legislative and judicial powers, is part of the beauty of American democracy. It’s also the bedeviling part of our political process.

There’s merit in the argument that Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Democrat, was set up by the Republicans’ majority in the Legislature when unrelated items, including $310 million in tax cuts — at a time when the state is cash poor — were tacked on to the bill establishing the Grow Iowa Values Fund. Republicans gambled that because Vilsack had been such a champion of the new economic development initiative, he was unlikely to veto the legislation

It wasn’t naivete or unfamiliarity with state law on the governor’s part to use his line-item veto power, as some of his critics have charged. Line-item vetoes are permissible under state law to reject portions of spending bills, but not to remove provisions from policy measure, and Vilsack believed his vetoes were within the limits of the law because the Values Fund legislation spelled out how the money would be spent. He tested his interpretation, and the Iowa Supreme Court ruled against him. That’s how the process works.

The task now is to reauthorize the $503 million Values Fund, which has awarded $56 million to 36 companies to either expand, retain or relocate jobs in Iowa. Republican leaders have said they’ll oppose any work-around efforts, such as one Vilsack proposed to use existing language under the federal block grant budget bill to honor the state’s commitments. And they’re holding steadfast to their commitment to tax cuts, which Vilsack and other Democrats correctly argue the state can’t afford. Both sides have dug in their heels, remaining steadfast to their positions. Same story, different day.

Logrolling — a term borrowed from the frontier days when neighbors helped each other clear trees for homesteads and used to describe the back-scratching that occurs so frequently in politics today — is what got Iowa into this dilemma in the first place. There’s no place for it in a special legislative session, which appears to be necessary to reauthorize the Values Fund since neither side appears willing to compromise. But lawmakers should put off contentious issues like tax cuts until the next regular session, after they’ve been given a hearing before voters in the November general election. That could, after all, result in a shift in power in the Legislature.

Perhaps that’s why Republican leaders appear unwilling to compromise.