Wassup?

Newsweek editor, Eleanor Clift writes, “ A week ago, political leaders were on a glide path to a $4 trillion deal that would have slain sacred cows in both parties and set the nation on a sustainable fiscal path for the first time since two wars, two rounds of tax cuts, and an unpaid prescription-drug plan blew through the budget surplus left from the 1990s.”  So what happened?  Politics as usual happened.   The 2012 election cycle is underway.   

The facts in this article by Andy Joyner, of Bristol, VA. posted on: www2.tricities.com/ reveal something very interesting about the debt limit.  “From 2002 through 2008 the debt limit was raised seven times. President George Bush requested the limit be raised and seven times his Republican colleagues abided. Not a single time did the Republican congressional caucus demand these increases be offset by spending cuts. Never did they hold the American economy by the throat with the threat of default when Bush asked for increases. On the day Bush took office, the national debt stood at $5.727 trillion. By the end of his tenure it was $9.849 trillion. That is a 72 percent increase on Mr. Bush’s watch. Does anyone remember John Boehner standing firm against spending and raising the debt limit then? How about Sen. Mitch McConnell? I do not seem to recall him having a passionate objection to spending, debt and deficits.”  By the way, even, then Senator Obama, voted against a debt limit increase once. 

Both sides of this argument are using it as a political tool.  Politics is blood sport.  In this case the blood is ours.  So whoever you believe is right doesn’t make much difference.  What we are seeing is one party holding the other party responsible for a critical economic situation that both parties created.  We and our economy are the victims of their joint policies.

In the last week, I’ve read and listened to both sides of the story until my head hurt.  I cannot listen anymore.  Not because the issue isn’t important but because it is so obvious that both parties are following political rule number one:  Never waste a crisis.

It is nearly impossible for a citizen to distinguish the facts from the political positioning.

According to the Republicans, Mr. Obama promises cuts in entitlement programs but won’t specify the details.  According to the Democrats, the Republicans want to force him to take full responsibility for the crisis that they helped create.  What we have here is a finger pointing situation that both parties are using to jockey for position in the upcoming elections.

But the problem is deeper than that.  It’s the fact that the electorate will line up behind whatever ideology they believe.  Politicians know this important secret: Beliefs come first.  Explanations come later.  So once they know what a group of their followers want, they will pander to it at the expense of solving the problem.

Some years back, I visited a Senator in his office in D.C.  Behind closed doors he told me, “Don’t pay any attention to what I say, just watch how I vote.”  His point was that until he was re-elected, he wasn’t able to be of service to the voters.  In other words, the end justified the means.

To understand the current situation you just need to put these two rules together:  (1) Never waste a crisis.  (2) The end justifies the means.

That my friends, is why we always wait until we arrive at a crisis point before we treat  the symptom and never solve the problem.  That is why we always kick the can down the road.  That is why we continue to fall further behind the rest of the modern world.  We just can’t seem to avoid our crises.  That would require careful planning and doing the hard stuff.  You can’t get any votes that way.

Robert DeFilippis