Let’s suppose you are at Disney World with your kids and you
see Goofy and Mickey outside the It’s a Small World ride in mortal combat
against each other. Before you know it, all the other cartoon characters have
taken sides and now you have a real gang war going – hair pulling, tail
tweaking, and everything! This is NOT why you came to Disney World and this
scene is not anything you want your kids to see. You feel pretty helpless
because it might take some time to notify the park management to stop the
fracas.
That helplessness is what many of us feel about Washington
right now. Elections are off into the future and meanwhile we have to watch
selfish politicians demolish our country. It ain’t pretty!
It doesn’t take a genius to recognize dysfunctional
government and its deleterious effects. Even the President underscored this
point. But he is not above the fray. His bus tour was more about reelection
than healing or else he wouldn’t have said millionaire/billionaire about a
zillion times a day. “Mommy – Charles
hit me first.” Charles retorts,” No Mommy, Pete hit me first.” Who cares who
hit first? The truth is that both parties are out of control. They both need
extended stays in time-out.
The Rs cling to a notion of no tax increases which at
minimum is an undefined statement. Despite its lack of clear meaning it serves
as a war cry that rallies the troops. The Ds attain the same pitch by screaming
about rich people. Again, no one really wants to define a rich person but the
message is pretty clear. This is enough to get the smoke rising and the tribes
chanting. Thanks to 24 hour news/entertainment the politicians who most
effectively promote this environment of misinformation and hatred get the
rewards of air time and notoriety.
At the heart of all this is something of value – determining
to what extent liberal and conservative ideology is promoted. We all know that
legislative manifestation of ideology swings back and forth from left to right
and this is probably a good thing. It is dizzying but it is doable. This
bickering across parties about their ideological bases is both desirable and
expected. But somehow this got out of whack. It is worse than usual and it
appears that nothing will get done before the election to improve things. Like
good Tar Heels (of North Carolina) both sides are stuck in place with little
hope for change.
What burns my butt is that the discussion is so disingenuous
and harmful. At the heart of the bickering is the extent of entitlement and how
you pay for it. To portray entitlement recipients or millionaires as somehow
less than human is wrong and damaging. Worse yet – to act as if taking money
from the rich and channeling it to entitlements will somehow improve the plight
of the disadvantaged is extremely naïve and harmful. Can the rich pay more? Sure. But in the way
things are now being handled you cannot blame the rich for reacting negatively.
There is more than one way to catch bees…
I am reminded of the issue of handicapped parking. I was in
a parking lot at a strip mall the other day and noticed this obviously
handicapped woman limping in from a distant space. Then I noticed that even
though there were a large number of handicap spaces, they were all taken. It
seems that nowadays almost everyone has a handicapped hang tag – people with
real but minor permanent handicaps get hang tags and people with temporary
health issues often use their temporary tags much longer than necessary. No
matter how fast they increase the number of special spaces – there are more
people wanting them. Is that what the original law imagined? Did we really want
to create a new and escalating entitlement called handicap? I don’t think so
and I felt really sorry for the limping lady.
What am I saying? Basically that our entire entitlement
edifice needs to be looked at again in terms of real needs. It is possible to
be a D or an R and believe that we are NOT doing a very good job with respect
to people in our society who need help. It is also possible to admit that we
are helping people at a very high cost who may not really need the help. By the
way, I would apply this very same argument to military spending. We REALLY need
to look at the effectiveness of all dollars we spend as a nation.
But you know, it isn’t going to happen because Mickey and
Goofy are shouting at each other. What happened to our country that we have
rewarded those who would rather get air time than actually do the work they are
paid to perform? Real entitlement reform and fair tax reform are possible but
it won’t happen if our leaders reduce their public and private communication to
such enlightening conversation as we have been hearing. Hey R you guys are mean
and rich and you gotta pay more taxes. Hey D you guys are dumb and you ain’t
gonna get my money. It’s my money and my mom said so.
My next blog post will get into how and why things have
deteriorated so far and maybe what we can do about it. For the time being, instead
of focusing all of their attention on finger-pointing it seems to me that the
real leaders ought to be stressing how similar and interdependent we all
are. Boys and girls are different but
they both are human beings and have more in common than differences. A policy
to stamp out men sounds like fun at a girls night out but surely the next
morning they would realize that they need us guys for a thing or two. The same
goes for liberals and conservatives. Neither party wins by mortally wounding
the other. Both parties and the country will gain when they begin to earnestly
emphasize how we benefit from each other. Maybe Goofy and Mickey will find a
way to lead us out of this mess.
As an American expatriate living in Europe it is a bit embarrassing to watch how much time and energy is wasted by both the R's and D's that could be better used to finding solutions to the current economic problems. I'm afraid that US politics has just become another national pastime like baseball. I listened to an NPR interview with two governors (one R and one D) and they seemed to agree on most issues and on how to serve their respective constituencies. The listener would be hard pressed to identify who was the R or D by just listening to the discussion. The interviewer wished that they both would retain the ability to work together if they ever were elected to Washington. They governors both admitted that sadly partisan politics would become more of an issue in that case. It does seem strange that there are only two viable political parties in the US. It seems to lead to the oversimplification of the issues and to the 'US vs. THEM' mentality. One reason I have never felt comfortable registering myself as either an R or a D when registering to vote. Hopefully, my absentee ballot will count for something in 2012.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of the Congress is to solve problems at a Federal level within the framework of the constitution...not to posture for reelection or spout various ideologies to attract the fringes within either party. Problems do not get solved by using politics as the way to identify causes and effects. It is sad because the US has been leaderless for so long and there is a great hunger for a leader not expounders of some radical ideas just to get votes. I like the British system...if the voters do not like what they got then they can have a referendum.
ReplyDeleteLike the parking metaphor.
ReplyDeleteI think it'll take at least the 3 Stooges and the Keystone Kops to get us out of this mess.
ReplyDeleteThanks Brad. I will be interested in how you respond to my next one -- probably early next week. I will speculate about WHY things have become so partisan and dysfunctional in the USA. If you are in Germany pour yourself a tall Heffe-Weitzen on me!
ReplyDeleteJames,The British Economy isn't exactly the promised land. Be careful what you wish for.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with some of your points, I think that too many people are lumping Rs and Ds together and saying they're both being childish. This is not symmetric. One party seeks to compromise on the budget issue by raising taxes and cutting spending. The other has a leadership that has all signed promises not to compromise. All Republican presidential candidates said they would not support a tax increase, even if it was supplemented with spending cuts 10 times as large as the tax increase.
ReplyDeleteEric Cantor won't approve disaster relief unless it is offset by spending cuts elsewhere. This is a man who voted in favor of two wars plus the largest government expansion in 40 years (the Medicare prescription drug program) while supporting tax cuts. That is a level of hypocrisy that again is not mirrored on the Democratic side of the aisle.
There are "wing-nuts" on both sides of the political sprectrum these days. But the influence they have on their respective parties is vastly different. The right wing extremists have taken over the Republican party, while the left wing extremists do not have anywhere near that kind of power.
Like his agenda or not, Obama has been willing to compromise. You can fault him for talking about taxes on millionaires and billionaires, but a year ago he put together a package that extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich. As a politician, you make political points, but you compromise on policy. That willingness is nowhere on the Republican side of the aisle.
As long as we continue to throw them all in a pile and say they are all acting childish, then there is no harm in one side being worse than the other. It is not enough to chastise "all the politicians" - rather we need to find the worst, call them on it, and demand them to be better.
Scott,
ReplyDeleteThanks! How all is good with you. Larry
Al, don't leave out Lucy and Desi. And then there is Abbott and Costello -- ABBOTT!
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI couldn't disagree with you more. Anecdotal evidence doesn't really cut it. I won't go into a line item list of all the ways Obama and the Ds have been totally ideological and uncompromising. Maybe my other readers would like to do that. Just one point -- don't be distracted by the difference between negotiation tactics and outcomes. Rs have compromised. There is an agreement. There is more to come. The Tea Party did accept tax increases and we will see more about these when the super committee meets. Nothing you alleged proves to me that the Ds are any better than the Rs. Keep on trying!
Anonymous. I gotta agree with LSD. Obummer compromises only when he’s backed into a corner. RE: Cantor; all of Wash., D.C. are the quintessential definition of hypocrisy – all of them . . but, if you want to single out the alpha dawg of hypocrisy say Obummer.
ReplyDeleteMost others’ comments in this blog equivocate: Ds and Rs don’t play nice and won’t kiss each others’ asses. Well, too bad. The stakes are clearly defined. Ds want more govomit and spending and Rs want less. The U.S. is simply spending too much. Keep it simple; reduce spending. Take the hit/pain; only the Rs seem to be willing to embrace that. It’s not a matter of who is better – Ds or Rs – but rather whether if (legal) U.S. voters want a third world beggar country or not.
Larry, I'm shocked. You say you don't want to go into a line item list of ways in which Obama has been totally ideological, but at least give me a couple examples.
ReplyDeleteYou're telling me not to be distracted by the difference between negotiation tactics and outcomes, but isn't that what your blog post is about. The incivility of the negotiations. Maybe this is always going to be a difference of perspective: my party is negotiating, the other party is petty, uncivil, and holding the country hostage.
Again, Republicans are signing pledges not to compromise by raising any taxes at all. You can say that is a negotiating tactic, but Dan Dalton would tell me that vowing not to compromise is not a negotiating technique that works.
The Tea Party accepted tax increases? I seem to have missed that. Tax increases are necessary to balance the budget. That is simply a fact, unless we want to live in a dramatically different country.
Charles, why do you say that Republicans want less government? Every election cycle, they say they want less government, but when in control, they spend more. They expand military spending and entitlement programs. Government grows at just as fast a rate under R as D. Your statement that the stakes are clearly defined is a misguided stereotype. But I'm sure you can believe the Republican candidates this time around. Republicans only concern about the debt is something to use as political tool when they are not in power.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteMillionaires and billionaires. Millionaires and billionaires. Do I have to go on? Taxing the rich. Protecting entitlements. Beating up on oil firms. Dragging feet on drilling rights. Are you so one-sided that you don't get how ideological all that is?
Insofar as your second point goes unlike you, I was even handed blaming both parties. The President and members of Congress made it very clear that they would not negotiate unless they got higher taxes on the rich. The right had their own sticking points. Somehow you seem to think the former is okay and the latter is end the of the earth. Sorry, no cigar.
I will let Charles defend himself on the other points.
I like Brad's comment about the two governors. It seems to highlight, probably unintentionally, one of the major problems in our nation....the federal government's giving short shrift to the 10th Amendment. It has assumed and the states have abdicated far too much responsibility all for being able to get a larger share of the federal pie while the feds issue multitudinous unfunded mandates to the states.The governors were agreeable because they can see what the federal power grab has cost them, in more ways than one. Give more power and responsibility to the feds and what you'll get is what everybody complains about, a bigger federal government. And all of the folks at the federal level want to keep it that way because that's where the power now resides. So the people who are saying that they want to reduce the size of government are lying. It's like saying "I want to work myself out of a job." Makes for a good sound bite but very shallow.
ReplyDeleteAnon, first, thank you for your civil response. If you do not or cannot acknowledge the blatant ideology of Obummer then I assume you do not see the stark differences between Ds and Rs. I unabashedly say that Obummer’s ideology is to weaken, if not destroy, the free market and America’s global standing. He is an abject failure both domestically and internationally . . . yes, you can say he’s made a few 3-pointers but overwhelmingly he is Mr. Zero.
ReplyDeleteTax increases to balance the budget? No, not tax increases but rather tax receipts. The former, according to regressives and Obummer via marginal tax rates, are tantamount to class warfare and punitive. Better to focus on getting the economy going again which will increase tax receipts at existing marginal rates . . . and if Obummer has learned anything from riding on training wheels for three years . . . will support tax reform so that the burden is shared more by the 50% of tax filers that do not pay any income tax. Yeah, that’s what I call spreading the wealth.
Yes, the stakes are clearly defined. Granted, govomit increases no matter who controls . . an acknowledged generalization tip of the hat to you, Anon . . . but it’s a little more complex that, isn’t it? Given the bicameral Congress and veto of POTUS and their current disposition, the contrasting philosophies of Ds and Rs are stark. Ds want less spending cuts and more higher marginal tax rates . . . can you refute that? and Rs want more spending cuts and tax reform . . . these positions are clearly articulated in print and lame stream media. That’s why I say Rs want less govmit . . . but unless Rs control the H, S, and WH the likelihood of less govomit will never occur when the D philosophy has even a sliver of deciding vote in either.
Can I believe the Rs this time around? Maybe, maybe not. But, I can always believe the Ds in their desire to grow govomit, pursue class warfare, and lust for OPM . . . other peoples’ money.
Well said Charles. It is nice to see you and Anonymous having such a productive and congenial discusson!
ReplyDelete