By August 2 we will learn the final and binding results of the 2010 mid-term elections. This is when the nation’s debt ceiling needs to be raised, as it’s been some 70 times over the past half century, including 10 times during the eight years of the George W. Bush Administration, six under a Republican-controlled congress. This latest suddenly austere version of Republicanism, forced upon an American electorate that had little choice if it wished to go against the latest version of spend-thrift Democratism, is now asked to stand for massive spending cuts and no tax hikes or allow the nation to go into default.
Period.
Anything less than these two outcomes will be another campaign promise dumped and another in a spectacular series of lies perpetuated on the American electorate in our sad and pathetic political history.
We were promised no compromise, no tax increases and a dramatic slashing in federal spending, including a raid on entitlements.
Are we going to get them?
Of course not.
Where do we go then?
Again, this is akin to the 2006 version of Democratism, which was chosen by a majority of voters to defund the ridiculously botched Iraq War and failed to do so. In fact, those election results eventually bore a troop surge in Iraq, which for all intents and purposes elongated our nation building, further bloating the aforementioned national debt. Then, after taking the White House, the continued rise in Democratism ignored the anti-war rhetoric and used their newfound powers to explode national spending with stimulus, bank bailouts and the propping up of the auto industry. Then there was Health Care.
None of the above had a damn thing to do with ending the Iraq mess, which still rolls along with a face-saving reduction in troops and the building of the largest U.S. embassy on Planet Earth bankrolled by a continued influx of American tax dollars. Then, laughably, the same people who ran and won as anti-war candidates, went along with their President by supporting and funding increased troop levels in Afghanistan—now the longest running military operation in our illustrious two-century plus glut of military operations.
Thus, the 2010 results, which roundly rejected Democratism—merely a continuation of Republicanism spending spree/tax cut/multiple war/massive entitlement expansion that forced the national debt to be a political issue in the first place—is at issue.
To put it bluntly, the ball is now in Republicanism’s court, where it will take the miracles of miracles to see binding results on the country’s $14.4 trillion hole.
Unless you’re asleep, apathetic or stupid, you’re likely not to be fooled by the results of the latest debate to appear concerned about a mounting national debt that no one in the federal government, regardless of ideology, actually cares a wit about.
This is good, because no one in this government has the stones to turn the nation into a deadbeat. The buck will be passed, the can kicked down the road. There will be some give and some take and next year when the parade of challengers to Barack Obama emerges in a din of complaints, they will tell us all how they will change Washington and fix it and not one of them will. Ever.
Let’s try and remember eight long months ago, as ancient a history as one can muster in several and varied news cycles, that many of the freshmen of our 112th congress crowed about never allowing the debt ceiling to be raised, damn the consequences. It was scorched earth time last November. Yes, our children’s very existence was at stake. We were headed towards doom.
So why are we discussing this now? Is this another case of the government telling us that the very survival of civilization depends on war success in the Middle East but yet offers no reinstatement of the draft or there is a curious absence of World War II-era attrition at home?
Ask yourself why the Speaker of the House has to have secret meetings with his base to make nice with his subordinates every time he meets with the White House about a deal. Is he on board with the 2010 plan or is he worried about the 2012 fallout that will usher in a second term for Obama?
It is far from cynical to point out that 2012 politics are being played here. If Republicanism folds on tax increases and gets its massive federal cuts, while inching into the entitlements arena, as purposed in what is now being cited in the Beltway as The Grand White House Proposal of $4 trillion in cuts over 10 years, then how do they hammer at the President all summer for being too weak to act? And if Democratism allows Social Security and Medicaid to be tinkered with while slashing several popular government programs, how does Obama sell his candidacy as a protection against the opposition’s draconian measures?
And then ask yourself if the Democratism that now cries blood-for-blood with austerity measures metered out to big oil concerns, closing corporate tax loops and billionaire tax code changes, how come when it boasted a “super majority” for two years it did nothing about them?
As these words go to press meetings within the Two Party System and their purportedly immovable ideologies continue behind the scenes. This aids in dealing with the inevitable fallout after they both cave and the plan goes into the tank. Everyone can then conveniently blame the other guy for not adhering to real solutions.
So then where do we go?
James Campion is the Managing Editor of The Reality Check News & Information Desk and the author of Deep Tank Jersey, Fear No Art, Trailing Jesus and Midnight For Cinderella.
