Politicians’ Progress: One Steps Sideways, Two Steps Back

We need to cut taxes! We need to cut spending! We need to protect the Military’s budget and allow it to grow! We need a balanced budget!

These themes seem to echo from some recent national exercise just barely beyond the recollection of the public awareness, an attention span deficit disorder if ever there was one. Given the citizenry’s ire about their government and the collective perception of an inept governmental vision, we have every politician and political party panicking and trying to find some course to sail their leaking and unseaworthy skiffs through the winds of this erratic Zeitgeist.

Let’s do the math!

The Military and Social Security are competing for the top position in the Federal budget. Social Security will win in 2010, but the Department of Defense is projected to take the lead in 2011. Health Care comes in next, although if you slice the pie a little differently it may be able to take first place in either year. We then get to Welfare and Interest on the Debit. We are now well past 80% of the budget. And let’s face it, we haven’t done much actual government yet! But we have accounted for $2.84 Trillion of the $3.55 Trillion 2010 budget. Surely if we cut half of the remaining $710 Billion, that’s $355 Billion for those Americans who helped put us in the 34th place in math among leading industrial nations, we would all save such an enormous amount that all our problems would disappear. Now if there are ~310M citizens (let’s not go there, it’s not a salient point here) then that budget cut would reduce taxes by $1,145.00 per person. Now I would like to have another thousand dollars to use to benefit myself; but I am not at all sure that it is enough to make up for a lot of that stuff that the federal government, albeit it very poorly and inefficiently, did with that money. And I am pretty sure that in the long run I would be better off if that $355 Billion were applied to paying down to national debt.

Returning to our political leaders (sorry I can’t think of a more apropos term but it’s hard to identify what they represent since it is not leadership), they are all about to line up behind the tax-cut, spend-cut, grow military, and balance budget scam under which they will do nothing significant to solving America’s problems. Cutting taxes and cutting spending while sounding good is not a guaranteed or even a likely solution to the deficit, to the economy, to jobs, or to the long-term interests of the American people. But it will do the one thing that is important, the one thing that is more important than the costs that every citizen will incur, the one thing that every politician pursues at any expense and at any consequence – their re-election.

Before these sycophantic plague bearers venture forth to save us with their promised solutions, perhaps it would be wise to remember the capitalistic maxim: caveat emptor. You are going to get what you paid for with your vote. Can you at least not whine about it when you get it!

Why Politicians Deserve No Credit

The sage insight and wisdom provided this week by recognized leaders from both the Republican and Democratic parties will be tossed aside by the self-absorbed politicians striving to enshrine themselves as demigods of their respective political philosophies. While it is more indirect, assessing the position that Tea Party members would take is likely to place them at immoveable odds with key aspects of the guidance being offered as the life-saving medicine for our nation. For a party that advocates fiscal responsibility, I suspect that in their heart-of-hearts tea party members mean they want to have what they want, and they want it now; but they don’t want to have to be held responsible for anything. Particularly they won’t be accountable for what they benefitted from in the past that they never paid for. You can hardly blame these weak-tea patriots, they have only recently been required to face the facts or consequences of their inattentive lifestyles. And even here, they managed to turn their mind’s eye inward on a utopian view of their future, where they expect anyone who is willing to lie to them to fix everything by promising to go forth and do what they want as long as it doesn’t affect anything that they see as good for them.

Who are the enablers of these irresponsible Lazarus-es of the American “Do Nothing” party? They are our politicians! Be they Democrat, be they Republican, or be they Tea Partyites or any other fractal variant of a party; these media crafted, sound-bite limited, issue distorting, bloviating sychophants are the bane of our democracy. These politicians always have the solution but never deliver it. They always promise to restore America to its rightful place in the world, but seem to do everything in their power to diminish, degrade and debase the vitality of America and its values.

Every politician in office today and those shortly to join the ranks of the incredibly incompetent will continue to avoid their primary responsibility; they will evade their responsibility for protecting the nation as obligated by their oath of office. The country is in debt. For decades politicians, particularly Congressional politicians, have been the sole builders of the debilitating debt deadfall that increasingly threatens America’s very way of life. Our politicians have done this by actively and knowingly passing budgets and legislation that either directly incurs greater debt or by ignoring the existing debt as if there were no consequences.

So let’s continue to follow these lackluster leaders and their new band of latter-day lackeys in pursuing the preservation of tax-cuts for everyone; thus advancing the day that crushes everyone under the uber-deficit created by their selfish partisans pandering to their respective special interests parasites. But since tax-cuts won’t pay off our debt, this chest thumping exhibition is just another log thrown onto the deficit deadfall we all get to enjoy when the trap collapses.

We certainly cannot depend on our political leaders, and extending them the country’s line of credit is just repeating the same act over again, and hoping for a different outcome. Yes, just going more insane.

If only there were an American value that we could live by, or some example from our history that illustrated the collective sacrifice that Americans made to protect the nation from destruction and preserve our principle of freedom, or even some document that provides some guidance that “as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”. But we would appear to be devoid of any such lessons from our past that might illuminate a fiscally responsible path we must find to escape this labyrinth of self-imposed liabilities.

After Stand Up Comes What Again? – American Intelligence Test #8

The mid-term elections have come and gone, and the world (more precisely the world-view) has turned upside down for many folks. The Democrats have lost their unilateral partisan initiative in Congress. The Republican elite have lost their established internal party leadership control. The Tea Party has gone from “I’am not going to take it anymore!”protester status to student drivers of the family car. And Independent voters have affirmed that they don’t like either party (or any party if you consider the Tea Party other than a sub-species of Republican) and want to kick out the current contenders for most egregious Congressional incompetents of the moment.

Now will this reconstituted amalgam of extreme positionists accompanied by a sprinkling of moderates and a couple of independents be able to address and more critically solve the core problems facing America? Before you think you have the answer, it’s test time. To solve these problems even the best and brightest of these dullards require the same thing that the worst and dimmest ideologue would require to solve these problems; and now you have our test.

Scoring is your responsibility to assess. As always a willingness to deceive yourself, as to the correctness of your answers or beliefs, is just another measure of the actual intelligence being measured. To paraphrase Lincoln:

Some of us can fool ourselves all of the time, and all of us can fool ourselves some of the time, but all of us can not fool ourselves all of the time.

The opportunity to fail is at hand.

Question 1: What is the most important issue that must be addressed if America is to guarantee its future as a free, democratic and competitive world-class society?

A. Taxes B. Gov’t Spending C. Deficit D. Education. E. Employment

Question 2: Does reducing taxes guarantee that the economy will improve?

Yes No

Question 3: The Government cannot create jobs?

True False

Question 4: American’s tax rates are ____

A. to high B. to low C. appropriate D. a choice

Question 5: Who benefited from creating the American deficit?

A. Government bureaucracy

B. Wealthy class (say over $1M/year)

C. Middle class

D. Poor and welfare state

E. Industrial/Military complex

F. Everyone

The Critical Question X: What is the only rational, logical and acceptable requirement for addressing America’s top problem?

A. Reduce taxes B. Reduce spending C. both A & B D. there is no problem E. Pay off the debt

That’s it, you are done, and you can now decide if you scored high, low or in the middle. For anyone with an interest, here are the/my answers.

1: C    2: No    3: False    4: D     5: F     X: E

The problem is that our politicians, bureaucrats, special interest lobbyists and stupidly ourselves agreed to go into debt. We choose to indebt ourselves at any price rather than stand up and be responsible for our country and democracy. We ignore that our Constitution gave the responsibility for Federal spending to Congress, and we naively not only listen to but we believe (actually believe) politicians.

Can a people that stupid, that unprincipled, that devoid of the American values of our founding fathers have a chance at preserving our life, liberty and happiness? Naaa! Let’s fight about Constitutional Originalism.