Monday, August 1, 2011

This Execrable Budget Deal is Only the Another Skirmish in a Long War

Debt ceiling fan, spinning in the wrong direction.

It's warm at my house, (I was going to say hot, but we live in San Diego, CA not San Diego, TX). My son's room seemed especially warm, so I turned on his overhead fan. A while later, I went back in his room and it was still uncomfortable. The fan was spinning fast, but in the wrong direction, sucking air up from the floor and blowing it towards the ceiling. This fan has a remote control, with way too many buttons; but I managed to hit the button to reverse the flow. (I know I am probably not supposed to do that, but quit interrupting.) As soon as I hit the button, nothing seemed to happen, the fan was still sucking air from the floor. But after a while, I noticed that it had started to slow. Sure enough, it continued to slow and slow, eventually coming to a complete stop and reversing direction.

So here is the deal with this execrable debt ceiling deal; we've got a fan spinning at high speed in the wrong direction and threatening to fly apart. But the only reasonable thing to do is apply a countervailing torque that will eventually reverse the flow. Sticking a pitchfork between the blades to get it stop instantly isn't going to be good for the fan or the pitchfork. But that means that we have to keep the torque constantly applied, because this fan has a lot of mass and momentum built up over decades.

This particular skirmish is yet another inconclusive battle in a long war on the growth of government. More fighting will come when the gang of 12 proposes further spending cuts, or perhaps tax increases. This gives another chance to light up this issue, because there the fundamental political calculus remains unchanged. Politico says this about Obama's calculus.
But the president appears to be betting that time is on his side as voters come to grips with the Republicans’ spending-cuts-only approach to the deficit. And the next six months could be a giant civics class in the consequences of the anti-government backlash that fueled the GOP’s gains in the 2010 elections.
I think that Obama doesn't get why this turned so ugly in the first place. He is amazingly tone deaf to actual politics, thinking Obamacare would be more popular after it passed, for instance.
The more the public understands how the growth of debt was only reduced a smidgen, and in fact continues to rise, there will be a backlash against the failure to do more. This is in our interests. This is part of the reason I supported the deal, exactly because it doesn't go far enough, and assures us of more such fights.

There are other reasons to think that the issue will continue to trend in our direction. First, with the economy not recovering, we might not make it past the 2012 election with this deal, especially if we tip into another recession. Second, there are still more cuts to be voted upon, so we need to gird up for the next fight. Keeping the issue of rising debt in the public's mind up until the 2012 elections will only work in our favor. The Democrats are loathed by ordinary voters over this issue, please see liberal pollster Stanley B. Greenberg's article Why Voters Tune Out the Democrats.
This distrust of government and politicians is unfolding as a full-blown crisis of legitimacy sidelines Democrats and liberalism. Just a quarter of the country is optimistic about our system of government — the lowest since polls by ABC and others began asking this question in 1974. But a crisis of government legitimacy is a crisis of liberalism. It doesn’t hurt Republicans. If government is seen as useless, what is the point of electing Democrats who aim to use government to advance some public end?
. . .
The deficit matters to people and has real meaning and consequences. A government that spends and borrows without the kind of limits that would govern an ordinary family is going to have big troubles. Voters I’ve studied say things like, if “we keep spending like this, we’re going to be bankrupt and there won’t be anything for anybody,” especially “our children.” The final straw is the government’s decision to continue spending and to put the country deeper into debt and more dependent on China.

Please keep in mind, this is a self identified left of center pollster saying this. So take heart, we have a lot of work to do. Making out of control government spending the central issue puts the left on perpetual defense. We need the voters to make the tough call in 2012, to elect tea party aligned candidates to tackle this issue once and for all.

4 comments:

  1. Excellent post. Link forthcoming.

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  2. How about we make the make the central issue what it really is; American bureaucrats are psychopathic murdering barbarians who want to enslave every man and woman on the planet to their system of identification and violation of our privacy inorder to assist bankers to maximize their theft through inflation of unlawful tender forced at the end of a barrel of a gun.

    Screw the deficit issue. Start arresting every man and woman who works for the government. Inform your neighbors to spread the word that Juries will solve this by finding each and every man and woman who violates their oath and Organic Law guilty for treason and giving them the death penalty. Juries is where our power really exists and in the power to execute citizens arrests. If the courts don't do their job when you have formally filed charges then record all of the long train of abuse and usurpation. Give them all the death penalty for committing mass and murder, economic warfare, false imprisonment, torture and treason against the people of America and the people of the world. Lets make this the number one issue and we will automatically win the spending issue because everyone will simply be seeking the REAL solution; Death to tyrants! Its time to take the whole thing to maximum overdrive. Flood the courts with arrests, identify those who violate their oath and systematically build dosiers on all their individual activities and personal details about their life. GET STRONG and GET RESOLVED! GET IN THEIR FACE. Know the Law and use this info weapon against them. They are under contract and they violating that contract. We are justified in seeking proper forms of justice/ When they don't carry out their duties of bringing themselves to justice them identify them and target them AND out of respect for them and Organic Law NOTIFY THEM of their loss of protections of Law from their failure to answer. We are the Law they are criminals. Bring them to justice in any form necessary they are collapsing the economy and the ruleof lawbecause they arestupid and they are murdering tyrants. They have murdered more than 60 million people in less than 100 years. Find them and bring them to justice. Take off the gloves and get RAW. Dominate the debate with reality and forget their little contrived mind control like the current debt ceiling fiasco this is how they control the debate. Cut it off and let every know they are MURDERERS and they should be given the death penalty ALL OF THEM!

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  3. Brilliant analogy! Perfect in every way.

    Anonymous, hyperbole can be an excellent tool if used properly, please do so in the future.

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