Cream pies not the answer to deficit problem

For those who were of that age, here is a multiple choice question: What was most likely to occur when the Three Stooges showed-up at some high society function? 

A. Erudite conversation

B. Cultural sophistication

C. Pie fight

Of course, even if you know nothing of the Three Stooges and their antics, it is not likely to be difficult to divine the correct answer. Equally true is what we’ve come to expect from the political dialogue in this country, particularly since the teabaggers took over the Republican Party. The Democratic Party has always had to compromise with its own conservative element, but the Republicans do not even have a wisp of a “moderate” element that Democrats can “work” with. Things have not changed since Mark Mardell of the BBC observed that the 2012 election was “A three-legged race with the runners struggling to go their own sweet way, while bound together by heavy chains. There will be a lot of talk of the fiscal cliff - the mutually agreed suicide pact that was meant to concentrate minds on agreement. Unless they do, the Democrats will be hit by spending cuts they don't want and the Republicans saddled with tax rises plus defense cuts that are abhorrent to them. Still chained on the edge, they seem determined to jump off the cliff, wrapped in an ugly embrace.”

You would, of course, think that the boys and girls who engaged in the previous pie fight that masqueraded as a budget deficit discussion would have learned a lesson or two. Unfortunately, the U.S. electorate saw fit to return most of the most offensive offenders (i.e. teabaggers) back to the House of Representatives, and for all practical purposes nothing much changed in the political dynamic. As before, Speaker of the House John Boehner came to an “understanding” with the president on a basic outline of a proposal, and then wilted before pressure from the anti-tax fanatics. He had hoped to smite the fanatics by removing many of them from positions of influence; unfortunately, that just made them more nasty and intransigent. 

While the president was insisting on his electoral “mandate” and polls that suggested majority support for taxing those making above the $250,000 income threshold and less violent budget cuts to social programs, Republicans have chained themselves to the philosophy of greed, privilege and indifference to the needs of the many; they have not even been able to countenance the idea of allowing the Bush era tax cuts for those making $1 million or more to sunset. Yet there is reason to believe that the Bush tax cuts were never intended to be “permanent.” George W. Bush himself should come out of his ranch closet and explain why the tax measure was given a 10-year effective life and not made a permanent tax cut. Surely he feared the potential for catastrophic budget deficits, particularly due to his foolish actions in starting two wars without the means to pay for them. 

Let’s be perfectly frank: Tax cuts are either bribes for votes—or “indirect” payments to wealthy “creditors”—but employed with a particular lack of moderation or common sense by Republicans; the actual utility of tax cuts in improving economic growth is practically nil. All the proof we need is to see little of the massive tax cuts given to the wealthy was recycled back into the economy and domestic job creation. 

And now we are faced with a situation where the president has no competent “partner” to deal with in the House. Boehner—as many of his congressional colleagues, even those who supported his attempt of a “compromise” deal with the president, have sadly observed—is completely spineless in the face of Tea Party extremism, and has completely lost face and respect in his failed attempt to show that he is someone who can be dealt with in a serious manner. Perhaps the former janitor is suffering from secret self-esteem issues that prevents him from stiffening his back. This may also explain why his two years as Speaker has produced a House that seen unmitigated incompetence, failure and sloth by its majority party.

For the Republicans, it is as it was since Obama was elected—destroy him at any cost, even if that  means the country as well. Unfortunately for them, the 2012 election demonstrated that a majority of the electorate did not blame Obama for the country’s problems, but Republicans and their mindless intransigence. Today, polls show that Obama’s approval rating far outdistances that of the Republican leadership, and most believe that Republicans are the principals standing in the way of a deal on the deficit. A majority of Americans voted to raise the tax rates of the wealthiest Americans, and now Republicans are seen more clearly as the party of the rich.

What will happen without a “deal?” Is the idea of going over the “cliff” really such a bad idea--as the BBC's Mardell suggests--or is it actually a way out of the mess? Allowing the fiscal cliff to occur would mean that with the automatic tax increases, the issue would become not tax increases but tax decreases—and who will get them. Democrats should be in a better position when the new Congress is sworn in to determine who those people should be. Of course, the cuts in government programs is also a concern, but again the Republicans stand to have the most to lose if they are seen as the enemy of the lower and middle classes by opposing the funding of needed social programs.