I think it was about a year ago when we had to live through the health care town hall debacle. It was during this time that I first began to seriously doubt our national ability to actually deal with a problem. It started with a protester who informed his Congressman to "keep the government out of my medicare." How on earth would you respond to that statement -- I mean, besides being utterly stunned by its sheer stupidity? How do you actually have a meaningful conversation about how to deal with a very complicated problem (such as health care costs) when people want you to somehow keep the government out of government insurance?
Just when I thought our national debate could not sink any lower, we had the national debt crisis. This should have been a simple vote, nothing more. Instead, we had a group of people in Congress who actually thought it was a good idea to vote (or, more specifically, not vote) for a national default. To even think this is a good idea should demonstrate to anybody how completely debased out national dialog has become. The US yield curve is a fundamental component of international finance; to threaten it's viability in any way is to essentially invite the possibility of financial Armageddon not just for the US, but for the world. And yet, we witnessed a group of people who invited just that -- and in fact were egged on by a not inconsequential group of pundits who agreed that committing financial suicide was a good idea.
And finally -- again, just when you thought we couldn't see a higher level of dysfunction -- we have the President's speech issue. The level of petty bickering that occurred over the jobs speech is embarrassing on an international level. On the one hand, we have a party (the Republicans) whose dislike of the president is obviously a seething hatred. They have even stated they will not vote for an extension of the payroll tax break that expires in December -- which would be an obvious breaking of their little Grover Norquist pinky swear on no tax hikes --- because the president is for it. That is beyond childish. On the other had, we have a president who is so completely inept and unable to actually accomplish anything that it really doesn't matter. Frankly, I don't think the president can make a peanut butter sandwich without screwing it up. Yet somehow he's going to propose a jobs plan and a deficit reduction plan within the period of a week (or maybe in the same speech).
Several weeks ago, I wrote a piece titled, If A Recession Comes, Blame Washington, where I wrote:
The problem with the debt deal is it took government action off the table at a time when governmental action is needed. Instead of borrowing at insanely low rates, investing massively in a degrading US physical and intellectual infrastructure, Congress is taking action off the table. Remember that governmental spending is a component in the GDP equation -- a fact lost in Washington policy debates, as is the different between consumption and investment. In short, Washington is focused on exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time and as such should bear the brunt of any economic slowdown we face.But now it's more than just taking government action off the table; it's that both parties have now proven they are utterly inept, albeit it in different ways. And frankly, that is deeply troubling, especially considering that the economy is now hanging on by a thread.
I've seen many people comment that this is more of a Republican issue -- that is, that the Republicans are more to blame than Democrats. I would respectfully disagree with that statement. While the latest Republican bunch in Congress is clearly hyper-partisan and hell bent on doing everything they can to derail the President, I would ask this: please list 5 points that outline what the Democrats plan is. You can't, because no one really knows. I've seen a bunch of trial balloons floated and ideas bandied about, but I have yet to see a concrete list of points that all Democrats are rallying around in any meaningful way. And that -- in addition to utterly incompetent leadership -- is the central problem with the Democrats.
8 comments:
Problem with your false equivalence argument Bonddad, is that you cannot equate spinelessness and ineptitude with destructiveness and insanity.
The dems may have become spineless and Obama may be inept at dealing with the GOP, but the fact is, they have never tried to lead this country off a cliff.
It was the GOP who was perfectly willing to turn the debt ceiling vote into Armageddon not the Dems. The GOP is the one who is opposed to any spending on infrastructure and a jobs program, not the Dems.
So I'm sorry but you are wrong when you try to say that the Dems are as bad as the GOP, the Dems have problems, but nothing compares to how bad the GOP is right now.
It doesn't matter anymore to me whether the Dems are bad or simply inept. Standing around looking stupid while somebody else kicks the crap out of the poor is really not defensible, even if they're terribly sorry about it.
Can't speak for bonddad, clearly, but that's my position.
I think the fundamental problem -- and I honestly saw it coming, not trying to play the told-you-so card but we _all_ should have seen it coming -- is that this group of Democrats, by and large, had absolutely no idea how totally batshit crazy the new GOP has become. They will absolutely destroy the world to get their way, and nobody should pretend otherwise. The only way to fight that is to fight it strongly through the bully pulpit, through presenting a clear vision and making a case for it -- through public opinion, in other words.
As a Californian, I have to say that if it weren't all so tragic, I'd be laughing my ass off at it. These are the same battles that have destroyed our state, by and large, and I certainly remember figuring it was only a matter of time before the same approach was adopted by the young republican loons at the national level; I really will never understand how national Dems didn't seem to see this coming. National GOP politicians have essentially just started doing what California GOP politicians have been doing for years.
Best of luck with that, USA. This GOP will not only use budgetary blackmail without fail, but it _will_ kill the hostages. We're dealing with tantrum-throwing children who will throw things if they don't get their favorite flavor of ice cream. We're dealing with people for whom no facts matter, they're quite positive that they're absolutely right about everything, and they refuse to accept anything meeting less than their full demands.
The Democrats, meanwhile, have no idea what to do with it, didn't plan for it, don't remotely get it, and don't fight it because they're still fighting on the political ground of past battles with no apparent understanding of the current situation.
We're screwed. Really, there couldn't be a worse time and a worse situation for the particular set of inept leadership currently in power globally. The small set of people with any chance to do anything to save the world economy right now are all either stupid or they're completely insane.
Yeah, I dont get the false equivalence. You state the GOP opposes things even they support, like a payroll tax cut extension, yet somehow Obama is to blame for that. I mean he needs Congress to get anything really significant done for the economy, and the House GOP has the power to block anything he wants.
You can ask Bin laden how inept Obama is at getting things he wants, when he doesnt need Congressional approval. Oh, wait, you cant. But I guess that proves my point.
1. I didn't really say much about Obama. This isn't just about Obama, though he's a participant. I voted for Obama, I will vote for Obama again, I think he's done some things well and other things poorly, just like most presidents. You're choosing to frame this as some pro/anti Obama argument. I'm in neither faction and find both to be pretty annoying.
2. Bin Laden has basically nothing to do with this impending catastrophe right here in front of us right now. Bin Laden is dead. Great. But doing that thing right will not, in fact, make this thing better for us when we're all standing in bread lines. This isn't some kind of game where we keep score to see who gets a shiny medal.
3. Obama isn't to blame for Republican positions or Republican tactics. Democrats, including Obama as the leader of the party, are to blame for failing to understand and plan ahead for those positions and tactics, failing to adjust their own tactics in response, for failing to accept that what they're doing otherwise isn't working, and for failing to understand and use the political tools at their disposal that have any chance of being effective.
Instead, Democrats have repeatedly failed to effectively counter the Republican push for austerity, Democrats went along with "debt reduction" at a time when basically any serious economist can tell you it's going to cripple the economy, Democrats quietly accepted a stimulus package that was doomed to fail, Democrats spent the last while pushing some "things are getting better" bullshit that nobody believes and that makes them look amazingly out of touch.
They have ways they can at least try to fight back, try to galvanize public opinion around an alternative set of ideas. Instead, they're standing there shrugging while the poor get screwed and the economy moves back toward disaster.
Shit, they're not even frankly doing a very good job of just pinning it on the Republicans. If that were, in fact, all they could do, they could at least do that. Instead, they stupidly make sure it's almost all bipartisan enough that everybody can share the public's blame when it makes us go back into recession.
To your credit, I thought you were going to step in the false equivalence bear trap, but I don't think you do. The Republican party is dominated by nihilists seemingly hell bent on destroying government rather than improving it. But the Democratic party is also failing spectacularly to point this out and point the way to a better solution. Good call.
I think the key problem here is that we have an extremely risk averse climate in our country right now. What you describe here is largely about our government creating uncertainty. We have a huge debate over health care reform which largely looks like a giant mess and the apparent fruits of that don't come for another three years. So are we going to be better off? Is it going to be more of the same? No idea. Uncertainty.
We've shifted from a fundamental assumption of perpetual growth, give or take a bump in the road, to an assumption of perpetual stagnation. While the economy struggles, nobody in Washington is putting forth solutions. Quite the contrary, there's a universal sense that it's out of their hands and we'll just have to ride it out. But that's just not going to cut it because this is a psychological problem as much as it's an economic one.
Add to this the repeated headlines out of europe that look a hell of a lot like 2007's real estate melt down. A bunch of debt that's been accumulated with no apparent ability to pay it back. Unclear connections between those potential defaults or hair cuts and all of the banks around the world. More risk. More uncertainty.
I'd also like to point out that you can source all of the shakiness in the financial system to one thing: derivatives. The reason why is simple: derivatives create uncertainty. Rather than being able to look at a bank's books and see exactly what it's position is, derivatives conceal all of this. So one day a bank has a glowing balance sheet, and then the next day they are in a melt down panic because it turns out that they made a very over-leveraged very bad bet.
It is derivatives that drove our economy into the shitter as banks imploded under the weight of all the debt they'd claimed to be without risk. Of course really it was just hidden risk. That collapse and the bank bailout is what took Ireland down. That collapse in the real estate market is what's taking Spain down. Further derivatives were used to hide the scope of the Greek debt and that's what's taking them down.
Pathetically, nothing of any consequence has been done to fix this. I largely suspect the reason is that governments around the world fear that meaningful regulation of derivatives would cause all of these bubbles to burst. That suddenly the world would become acquainted with the real systemic risk in the world and lose it's shit. So they try to patch over it and pretend all is well in hopes the problem will just go away. It won't.
Instead the longer we refuse to deal with this issue, the more that uncertainty will continue to dominate the markets. God only knows what the banks have been dabbling in lately? I mean if you had the implicit backing of the US government, those 50% returns on greek debt might look very promising. Or maybe they learned their lesson. Nobody knows. Uncertainty.
Steve S said, "The Republican party is dominated by nihilists hell bent on destroying government..."
As a Canadian observer of the US I say; Republicans are being TRUE to their understanding of the American Myth. That "Myth" is simply "freedom and liberty."
While we Canadians thought you fought a Revolution to get "Democracy" so you could manage your own affairs - MOST Republicans think you got "Democracy" so you could ensure that Government - which is the "enemy" must be keep "small" so that it can eventually be "drowned in a bathtub" and not interfer with "freedom" and "liberty." F & L means - to a Republican - my PERSONAL F & L and even IF I have children without healthcare, roads with potholes and a totally dysfunctional society - no problem as long as I've Freedom and Liberty.
In all the Western Democratic world - except the US - we little people understand that the top 10% can only make their money FROM US. We make sure taxes, regulations, etc. are structured in a way so that no parents child goes without healthcare, that no road goes unpaved and education is affordable to all who have the ability to attain it...at least...that is what we attempt to use Democracy for.
A vastly different view of Democracy than an American Republican.
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011093606/washington-against-heroes-iposti-attacks-eric-schneiderman
Obama is not as much inept as he is a willing tool of Wall Street.
And of the military industrial complex. And of the Cheney Police State continued.
Of course these have proven to be inept in their runaway greed and imperial hubris too, so....
The way I see it, the GOP is the thug that stabbed you and took your family hostage; the Dems are the first responders that ignore your pleas. One is clearly more evil, but does pointing that out really help? It's not like the Dems' ineptitude exonerates them from their failures at governance. Bear in mind even when they had an 18-seat majority in the Senate, they basically had the Republicans write Obama's HCR bill in committee.
Yes, the GOP is the source of all the political drama, but don't you think it's odd that they've been able to pull these stunts even when they're in the minority? The debt ceiling debate was accomplished with just the House; their leverage during the HCR debate was even worse. Why did fifty-eight Senators waste so much time catering to a few conservatives? Was it the filibuster? Bullcrap. There are ways around that but the Dems unilaterally disarmed themselves. And even if the GOP threatened to filibuster, so what? That's a fight they should've been eager to have. No, you've got to think a little more cynically to make sense of the Dems' ineptitude.
You can give the Dems a damned 150-seat majority in the House and they'll still find a reason to "capitulate" because that's their game. They need the populist vote to win elections but they have to follow the same corporatist rules as the GOP because they're funded by the same sources.
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