I believe in compromise, I would have been divorced, a long time ago, were I not able to compromise. It isn’t that there are not passionate debates, but at the end of the day, we are in this marriage together. Apparently, there are factions of the tea party that want a “divorce” in my opinion, a divorce from their fellow Americans.
An op-ed in the Washington Post by Harold Meyerson exemplifies my feelings on the debt ceiling.
To elucidate the mysteries of Washington — in particular, why House Republicans, having compelled the Democrats to craft a Republican-in-all-but-name plan to get a deal on raising the debt ceiling, still don’t want a deal — we turn to the Fable of the Scorpion and the Frog.
A scorpion meets a frog on the bank of a stream and asks the frog to carry him across on his back. The frog asks, “How do I know you won’t sting me?” The scorpion answers, “Because if I do, I’ll drown along with you.” So the frog, bowing to the logic of the scorpion’s answer, sets out across the stream with the scorpion on his back. About midstream, the scorpion stings the frog, who is paralyzed and starts to sink — as does the scorpion. “Why?” the dying frog asks. “Because it’s my nature,” the scorpion replies.
The GOP’s intransigence in the face of one concession after another from the president — abandoning, successively, his party’s insistence that tax increases should be a substantial part of any fiscal fix, then that Social Security and Medicare should not be touched, and finally that tax increases should be part of the deal at all — has certainly given them more substantive victories than virtually anyone anticipated. But of course, few anticipated how incapable Obama would be of framing the larger debate, and how willing he’s been to jettison core Democratic positions in his bid to win back the support of independent voters.
Even today, Reid has put forth a plan that actually cuts more from the budget than Boehner according to the CBO.
Apparently, House Republicans are holding out for a formal surrender ceremony. Speaker John Boehner has come up with a counterproposal to Reid’s — a plan that isn’t all that different substantively but that Boehner titled “The Two-Step Approach to Hold President Obama Accountable.” For many Republicans, even this doesn’t go far enough. Republicans apparently won’t be satisfied until Obama takes responsibility for all of the national debt, the Bush tax cuts and the Oklahoma heat wave, admits he’s not a citizen and goes back to Kenya.
They may harm themselves and the nation by holding out for that deal. Like the scorpion, though, it’s their nature.
Our gravest problem facing this nation is a lack of jobs. More jobs, more income, pay down the debt. This country needs both tax reform, entitlement reform, and health care reform.
Who does everyone think is on the receiving end of all massive spending cuts? Your fellow Americans, my friends, your fellow Americans. In fact, our fellow Americans who can probably least afford to lose even a dollar.
The fable could also be changed so that the turtle is the American taxpayer and the scorpion is our government.
I think it’d be more accurate.
What turtle? I reread looking for Mr. Turtle but he was not there. Was he wearing a three corner hat?
our taxes were this low back in the 50’s, pre medicare, how low should they go? How many unfunded wars can this country afford? HOw about unfunded tax cuts?
Good point, Elena. We have a lower tax rate than when Clinton was in office.
Dan, before you admonish Elena and me in a hysterical tone, do a couple of things:
1. Remember whose blog this is and remember to be polite to everyone, even those you disagree with.
2. your is a possessive pronoun. You are = you’re
3. Last warning on the courtesy issue. You don’t have the right to come on our blog and act like an ass to anyone. I am fed up with having to play mama/cop. Disagree with an issue but do it courteously.
I removed your comment. I don’t have the energy or patience to deal with stuff like that today.
I appologize. I read frog and thought turtle.
The taxpayer is still getting it in the shorts.
Ribbit!!! @marin
You don’t believe in taxes. I don’t like taxes but I figure they are inevitable.
How does a modern industrialized civil society support its infrastructure if not through taxes?
I don’t recall saying I don’t believe in taxes. I think a reasonable tax rate and an approach where we’re all treated equal under the tax laws to provide for a moderate infrastructure. Sure. I can agree with that.
I don’t think that infrastructure includes
unemployment
healthcare
retirement
distribution of wealth
….we could go on.
Build a road and a post office? Sure. If they are needed. Hand out money or food to someone that won’t work for themselves. Nope.
I am not sure what ‘distribution of wealth’ means. It has become a political buzz word. Are you telling me that you don’t think employers ought to offer healthcare and retirement or do you mean public employees shouldn’t get those things?
If they shouldn’t, how do you ever attract well qualified workers in the public sectors? You would end up with the janitors performing heart surgery at major teaching universities.
I don’t believe in handing out money to people either. There is too much room for abuse, some of which I have seen with my own 2 eyes. I do believe in food stamps, milk for kids, free clinics, and housing vouchers. I suppose the very poor get cash.
What do you do? What about people who cannot work? Child care is one thing that keeps people from getting a job, especially inner city folks.
I have no answers. I sure don’t like forking over money to people who should be able to get out there and bust their hump and provide for themselves.
I believe in compromise. I believe in taxes. I don’t believe in borrowing money to pay for borrowed money and then borrowing…just a little bit more in case we need it.
I want Congress to get off its collective butt and put some bills to debate. Instead of Reid just tabling the House’s bill, lets put it up for debate, amendments, and a vote. Same with a bill that the Senate sends to the House.
BOTH parties are being stubborn. And both parties are being deceptive with the math. And one side is trying to make this look like an emergency, just like the last few times, said party rammed down a bill……”if we don’t pass THIS bill, the sky will fall!”
If this is such an important thing, lets pass a SHORT term raise, and put this to debate over the next few months and revisit it in about 6 months.
Or is it more important to take this topic off the table during an election year?
It is an emergency. Do you have the same demands of Bohner?
The country has been borrow since its inception. Maybe you just don’t believe in the way America has always done business?
Both parties are trying to hold their ground. Unfortunately, Bohner is having trouble with his freshmen who haven’t figured out the rules of Congress.
For a long time, the rules of Congress have been that a freshman salutes and takes orders until such time as his loyalty to the big bosses is deemed worthy of a place at the table. The times they are a changin’. Many of those freshmen now seem to have bought into a bit of populist rebellion by thinking that they should be saluting those who voted them into office and taking orders from the people back home. Actually, I posit that such was the original intention back in 1787.
A little alternate play on Elena’s fable of the scorpion and the frog. In Africa my African friends always told me that it was a scorpion and an elephant. In response to the elephant’s perplexed query, the scorpion replied with a shrug: “C’est l’Afrique.” Rough translation: “That’s Africa for you.”
My analogy is closer to a frog…in a pot of water, being boiled….
The debt is the water.
We are now realizing that we, the frog, are boiling to death.
“I am not sure what ‘distribution of wealth’ means.”
When an agent of the government puts a gun to my head to demand my money to give it to someone that won’t do for themselves. They’ve taken my wealth and transferred it to someone else. It’s as simple as that, really.
I agree with Wolverine on this. A lot of the freshman rather than doing things in the usual Washington way are bucking the system. They’re standing up and saying no. They’re pushing for changes. They are making the establishment nervous and angry.
That’s a good thing.
I just want some hope and change that Mr. Obama promised me.
It won’t be a good thing when the your 401k dries up/ I feel it is horribly naive to cheer these people on.
its one thing to buck the system with knowledge, another to do it from a niave and junvenile frame of mind. Well, let us default, and I guess we will wait and see what happens.
@Moon-howler
401K? What’s that…cause I sure don’t have one anymore? I had to cash mine in so that I could live on it.
And if you think yours is safe because of the debt limit being raised…..dream on.
And we’re NOT going to default. They are lying to you. Even Obama has told the banks that there will be no default. By law, he HAS to pay those bills first. We might have to cut spending elsewhere, but there won’t be a default.
Well…how do I say this….I still have a couple of mine and I would like to keep them. I don’t think raising the debt limit is going to do one damn thing to it. I fear not raising the debt limit, default, and the tea party as more serious enemies of my assets and also my pension and my ‘entitlements’ which I paid in to my entire adult working life.
If my kids have to pay for some of this, so be it. I paid for WWII my entire life and frankly, I am glad to do it. The alternatives aren’t particularly appealing. I don’t think I would like speaking German or Japanese. That’s just the way it works. They did what they had to do.
Quite frankly, I think that, if whatever comes out of this dustup turns out to be a political sham and not a genuine and immediate cut in spending and the national debt, all those 401k’s may well go into the tank anyway. We had better bite the bullet right now or we will surely be chewing on it later.
“Naive and juvenile frame of mind”? Really? It was not those Young Turks who ran the national fiscal train off the tracks. It was the old farts in both parties on the Hill who bear a big part of the responsibilty for doing that. And now the train wreckers are telling us that only they have the answers?
Moon, it seems to me that, over the past year or so, the credit rating agencies, as well as the IMF, have not been talking about the debt limit but about the debt itself. This threat to our credit rating did not arise just yesterday because of the current dustup in Washington. It has been out there for some time — not as a sound of trumpets but as a low-key but very stern warning. I recall posting one of those warnings from the IMF many months ago.
Moon,
apparently Cargo seems to care less about his fellow americans and their retirement funds.
http://www.businessinsider.com/jamie-dimon-debt-ceiling-isnt-raised-and-the-us-defaults-praying-2011-4
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june11/debtceiling_04-13.html
In the first place in which I lived in Africa, the only available medical help for hundreds of miles in any direction was a state-run medical clinic. The clinic’s principal personnel were a medical technician and a midwife. Oh, they had a surgeon from Eastern Europe for awhile; but he got sick and went home. Whenever you went to that clinic for help, whether you had a headache or a compound fracture of the leg, the answer was almost always to take an aspirin and hope for the best.
When I look at that astronomical national debt and when I look at most of the plans being put forward by the leadership in either house to resolve the debt crisis, it reminds me of that old clinic. Take an aspirin and hope for the best.
@Elena
No, that was snark because I keep seeing worry about retirement funds when the debt that you want raised and continued is what’s going to cause the default, NOT a failure to raise the debt ceiling.
I keep seeing worry about retirement funds, etc, when we have 9+% unemployment with an actual rate much, much higher. And that’s directly due to current Obama policies.
I keep seeing blame assigned to one side, when I see obstinacy due to short term political interests from ALL sides, EXCEPT the Tea Party. The Tea Party politicians don’t expect to get re-elected, unless they hold the line.
@Elena
Um…that link backs MY position. The main worry is a lack of cuts to the deficit and a continuing rise in the debt. The debt ceiling worry is related to that position, not as a single concern.