Four years of mismanagement,
stalling and political cowardice have brought us here. American government has
hit rock-bottom. The three-branch system, even with a bi-cameral legislature,
will awake on the morning of January 2nd like a bottomed out meth
addict: laying on a bed of used hypodermics, shaking off the cobwebs of a
body-smashing, weeklong bender and praying that nobody contracted a deadly
auto-immune disease.
But that’s the point.
That’s the entirety of the point. This Fiscal Cliff was and is a poison pill.[1]
It guaranteed that nobody on either side of the aisle would get what they
wanted and it was designed to scare the entirety of American government into
action. Republicans, fearing that tax rates would rise for the wealthy, would
be forced to compromise with Democrats, equally afraid that welfare spending
would be slashed from the federal budget.
Congratulations to the
geniuses who came up with that idea.
Hopefully we can thank
them someday, these “geniuses”, not for fixing the economic woes of the country,
not for providing a solution (or even motivation to find a solution) to America’s
perennial budget deficit, but for proving to me, and hopefully the rest of the country
something that Standard & Poor’s knew over a year ago.
We, American citizens,
the world, the global economy, all of humanity are held at the mercy of a broken
political system which functions (or more often fails to function) based on the
whims of two opposing and completely incompatible ideologies.[2]
The two parties can agree
to one thing: the other side are useless, their ideas worthless and their
values detrimental to this “Great Land of Ours.”
American politicians are
just as likely to negotiate in good faith with a political opponent as they are
to with terrorists. They don’t.
The two party political
system is an endangered species across the globe, and it only thrives in the
United States of America, where it should be put down mercifully and allowed to
go extinct. Power has been concentrated firmly in the hands of two groups, who
perform various acts of theatrical political grandstanding to prevent their
opponent from instituting any meaningful legislation.
Stagnancy is the dominant
theme of America’s two party narrative. Where ever the two sides overlap in
policy, the agreement is in reality more of a stalemate with mutual benefits
than anything else. Nobody in Congress, for example, has seriously considered
cutting the salaries and benefits of Congressmen in order to help solve the
country’s budget crisis. Sometimes a third party appears and is able to subdue
the bickering between the two sides (generally shoveling money into pockets
like conniving parents shove candy into the mouth of whining infants) and dupe
the system for their own gain. How many billions of dollars have been given to
United States oil companies in the past century?
But these last months of political
inaction have been particularly revealing. The country literally has a
legislative branch that is entirely incapable of legislating. Even if the leadership
of the two sides wanted to get a deal together[3],
it’s unlikely that anyone would be able to vote on it before some bozo
assassinated it in some sub-committee or, if it reach the House or Senate
floor, stood up to filibuster and prevent any actually voting from taking
place.[4]
But that’s what Americans
have. Expecting anything useful to come out of American politics is like
expecting to get to work on time by driving a car with four flat tires.
Something needs to change.
[1] For the record, the
dreaded Fiscal Cliff might not be all that dreadful. Revenue will be raised;
government spending will be cut. Maybe revenue will not be raised in the right
way, taxed from the right people. Maybe spending won’t be cut properly, and the
useful programs might not be properly protected. But nobody blames the field
surgeon for amputating a little bit too much healthy tissue, at least nobody
dying from gangrene does. But, although the country might not be as gangrenous
as before, lopping off one of America’s legs isn’t all that helpful in the long
run.
[4] By the way, filibustering
used to amount to a politician standing up and speaking in order to prevent a
vote from taking place. Someone would speak for as long as
possible, with voting occurring after the speech. Now, a filibuster is
announced, the three-fifths majority required to bypass a filibuster fails to
come together and everyone goes on vacation. Of course, some particularly
daring politicians even filibuster
themselves. All filibustering can accomplish is slowing the political
process.
