Yes, yes, I know this is a blog post that is a couple of weeks late. The Empire has struck back, the protesters have been evicted from their spiritual home of Zuccoti Park, and the media has turned its focus to more serious matters like the latest round of unrest in Egypt and whether or not Kensington Palace is cursed. Beware, Kate Middleton....there be ghosts.
I haven't commented about the recent protesters because my feelings on them are rather conflicted. Half of me can't help but agree with those cold hearted folks who are just calling them a bunch of bums who would be best served by going home, getting a shower, getting a haircut, and getting a job. Oh? You can't get a job because you spent 6 years at Bernard studying Malaysian poetry? Sorry. Perhaps you should have majored in finance. How are your burger flipping skills?
But on the other hand I can see (and share in) the frustration. The failed debt deal this past week is a case in point. The Republicans may have their reasons for being so inflexible on tax increases, they may be perfectly good and they may indeed go further than a simple piece of paper someone shoved in front of them. But when the debt deal failed in part because the Republicans were unwilling to raise revenues in anyway, it certainly looked like they were going to the mat for the wealthiest 1% of Americans and regarding the remaining 99% with a cold shrug of the shoulders. How can you not feel disenfranchised by this? Taking to the streets and voicing outrage would seem to me a perfectly legitimate response.
We have a government that seems to have lost the ability to steer our nation on any kind of course.
The thing that makes this so frustrating to me is that what the Republicans are setting bayonets for doesn't seem to be worth such a desperate fight to save. The Democrats want some of the Bush Tax Cuts to expire (I would rather they all expire, personally). I had hoped to find a source out there that said if we just let the tax cuts expire, our fiscal woes would be solved, but that turned out not to be the case as a 2010 Congressional Research Report argues. Page 11 shows that under 2010 projections the overall debt to GDP ratio would only be a few percentage points less if all the tax cuts expire, and that the overall ratio would continue to increase (though I do not know how they are projecting GDP....) on a rather unsustainable path.
You may use this to argue that if it makes so little difference there is no point in letting the tax cuts expire. But I would argue that a sensible Republican Senator or Representative might say if there is no real difference, he or she would use that as a bargaining chip to gain some of the cuts to government programs that actually would make a difference over time. Yes, there may be some people ranging from the pretty well off to the totally stinking rich who will grumble over the fact that their income taxes have gone up a few percentage points, but I doubt the increase will be exceedingly painful for them. My take on it is that a rise on taxes on the wealthy, while painful, does not stand up against the pain others will suffer if vital social programs which might be protected by an increase in revenues are cut.
But I think its good politics as well. I'm sorry if you make Grover Norquist and Rush Limbaugh angry (though I really wouldn't be that sorry), but the rest of us would be happy to see a little justice, and shared sacrifice, even if it isn't really. Just the sense that we are being governed again (even if we really aren't being governed very well) I think would ease our troubled minds and maybe give us the confidence boost we need to go out and finally get that tattoo, motorcycle, or boob job we have thinking about getting for so long now. You only live once, afterall.
All kidding aside, my point is this: The Oath of Office should take precedent over any piece of paper that a lobbyist told someone to sign, or any promise that was made on the campaign trail. The faithful and sober governance of this nation should be more important than party politics and making Obama a one term president, especially in these difficult days where we are looking at a rapidly changing world and staring down the barrel of our own impending fiscal crisis. It is not up to the Republicans to decide on Obama's next term, it is up to the American People when they go to vote next November. Getting a president out of office should not be the platform of the opposing party. The platform should be to govern.
Now, you may feel that I am being hard on Republicans. I apologize for this (though I do feel that finding a sensible Republican in Congress is about as elusive as a 1963 Joe Schlabotnik baseball card), but it's quite obvious to me that they are driving the bus and setting the agenda, which is about as damning an indictment of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party that I can give. I give Obama pretty good marks on foreign policy (though I give them with some unease), but I think he's proven to be a pretty poor leader in general. But like the old saying goes: good salesmen rarely make good generals, even if you give him a shiny hat and new boots.
And like the other old saying goes: Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like attending a rally of the Bah Humbug! Glorification Society. Last year I won the look Ebeneezer Scrooge look alike contest and talent show, and I must defend my crown. GGMM, where did I leave that dang blasted top hat?
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