Letter 2 America for July 30, 2013

Dear America,

Once again, the American political discourse devolves to bickering over the national debt ceiling.  The players are the same: John Boehner as Speaker of the House for the Republicans, and in the other corner, President Obama and the Democrats, and the terms are the same too.  Boehner has insisted that an increase in the debt ceiling will have to be paid for with spending cuts while President Obama has vowed not to participate in negotiations on the subject of increasing the debt.  It's all so familiar...and so untoward for a nation that is prideful about its political system.  And in the meantime, there is no movement on the subjects that are on the minds of us Americans: employment, income disparity, corporate profits, a rigged financial system, and in the background specific things like the XL Pipeline.  On Meet the Press, one of the participants, short-term Congressman Harold Ford, made the point that the parties could agree on infra-structure improvements as a means of employment enhancement, but he didn't explain why, which enabled him to lump the pipeline in with new roads and bridges as a point at which there could be a meeting of the minds.  But it doesn't belong there, and the fact that someone would fail to see that does not bode well for compromise, much less progress because what is needed is cogent argument rather than misguided axioms.  While infrastructure improvements do result in job creation--and that is a consensus in which even Republicans cannot help but participate--for the most part, infrastructure improvement is a double boon in that it also enhances our economy for the future.  Better highways and bridges enhance transportation of both people and goods making it easier, faster and cheaper, and without a negative consequence as well.  Better internet infrastructure improves education, communications in general and commerce, again providing something lasting in exchange for the expenditures involved.  But the XL Pipeline does nothing but add profits to the bottom lines of gulf coast petroleum refiners' balance sheets as they export over 100 million gallons of gasoline per day and use the shortage of gasoline in this country to justify increased prices at the pump, yielding only insult to injury for what the pipeline will cost environmentally.  The point is that every kind of remedy for our economic woe requires careful analysis before it is endorsed.  In the case of the pipeline, it makes no sense to risk the pollution caused by an all-too-possible pipeline spill for the prospect of some jobs when there are hundreds of other project types that could yield the same number of new jobs with a potential gain for the nation instead of increased exposure to environmental disaster and nothing to show for it but more bloated corporate fiscs.  

So nothing has changed since 2012 despite the election and the expression by the American people of their dissatisfaction with the performance of congress, the House of Representatives in particular.  Still, the Republicans remain in control of what isn't working, continuing to make the same arguments to justify the dysfunction that they are wreaking on us all, which begs the question, why?  It would seem that the Republican Party cleaves to the notion that the American people don't know what to think and thus, if the party just persists in making an argument that only a minority has bought to date, the balance needed to form a majority, or at least a plurality on election day, will come around.  But the likelihood seems remote in light of the reality that most Americans live with.  For example, a friend of my wife's has worked hard all her life...the Republican ticket to prosperity, but she has also struggled all her life and is now on the verge of a final descent into poverty.  She has worked for others, held more than one job at a time, and has tried to start her own business, now on a second occasion.  But, while the consignment shop she has started for the second time is making money, it isn't enough.  Her significant other has also tried to get out of what amounts to corporate indenture as a route driver for a major soft drink manufacturer by buying a snack food delivery route of his own, but like my wife's friend, he is not making sufficient money to provide for life's necessities...even when combined with that of my wife's friend.  He is on the verge of losing the one thing he has managed to build for himself in his working life...the equity in his house...because he can't pay the mortgage, and the utilities are significantly in arrears as well.  The bottom line, in more ways than one, is that our economic system does not provide an opportunity for everyone who wants one and is willing to work hard.  For some people, there is no way up and out of the bottom cohort of our economy, and they often vote...except in Texas of course.  So how are the Republicans going to parlay this debt ceiling debate, which is nothing more than an abstraction for people struggling to keep body and soul together, into something other than a distraction for the news media and those affluent enough to care.  Frankly, I don't know the answer, but it seems likely to be one of two possibilities.  Either the Republicans are right and this red herring issue will work for them, or they aren't and when the election tallies are made, the joke will be on them and they will be one step further from their goal of political hegemony.

We'll see very soon how this plays out.  The public spectacle of the Republicans threatening to essentially shut down the government unless they get what they want is the equivalent of a spoiled child stamping his foot and demanding the chocolate to which he thinks he is entitled.  To Republican loyalists that's as it should be, but Republican loyalists have been a minority in the American polity for the past decade or so.  Thus, the cocky self-assurance of Republican politicians like John Boehner is less an asset for the party than it is one for the Democrats trying to discredit them.  It seems like foot shooting time again.  Let the target practice begin.

Your friend,

Mike