Pick One

Not parties or representative animals… solutions! So let’s say Congress has four basic choices to solve, let’s see, a spiraling deficit, immoveable unemployment, collapsed housing prices, the disappearance of credit for anyone except those who caused the problems, an unwinnable war, out-of-control healthcare costs and an educational system that produces more illiteracy than success?

1. Blame the other party for the mess.

2. Do nothing knowing that as things get worse, the party in power soon won’t be.

3. Work hard to find mutually acceptable compromises to make things “better.”

4. Reject anything just because the other party espouses that point of view… even if you voted for it before or even co-sponsored the same perspective.

If you picked number three, what planet are you living on?! Who are those guys (and gals)? They have accomplished less in a period of crisis, where solutions are desperately needed, than in calmer times when we actually didn’t need much legislation.

Bye bye, Evan Bayh, as he withdraws from the upcoming Senate race in Indiana, a Democrat who says he can’t live with this stalemate any longer. Whether you believe that’s the real reason, you most certainly can’t disagree with the premise. Try this quote on for size (noted in the February 16^th New York Times): “‘I used to think it would take a global financial crisis to get both parties to the table, but we just had one,’ said G. William Hoagland, who was a fiscal policy adviser to Senate Republican leaders and a witness to past bipartisan budget summits. ‘These days I wonder if this country is even governable.’”

With our currency at risk, interest rates teetering on the brink of horrific increases, government competing with private industry for loans and the economy stuck somewhere between recovery and “slump, part two,” what exactly does it take to get legislators together to do what we elected them for? Or do we have to throw every single inflexible politician out of office until we find someone willing to find a middle path to solve the problems which, if unsolved, could making living in this great nation a thoroughly unpleasant experience of a society in steep and precipitous decline. The do-nothing Congress is useless. Factious doctrinaire Democrats with unified purity doctrinaire Republicans are both completely useless. If our elected representatives can neither lead nor solve problems, just repeat, almost by rote, doctrines that have abou t as much a chance of becoming America law as I do becoming the next Czar of Russia… we just don’t need them.

The Times: “Foreign investors now own more than half of the publicly held debt, and officials for the largest creditor, China, have fretted publicly about the fiscal course of the United States. While few expect foreigners to dump their assets, since the resulting plunge in values would hurt them as well as everyone else, the fear is that investors will demand higher interest payments and reduce or stop future debt purchases, threatening the government’s ability to finance its borrowing.

“Lesser financial and fiscal crises have brought the two parties together to compromise on tough choices about taxes and spending. They include the 1983 accord between President Ronald Reagan and a Democratic-controlled Congress that reduced the financial strains on Social Security, based on proposals from a commission led by Alan Greenspan, and budget agreements in the 1990s that contributed to a four-year run of surpluses at the end of the decade.”

OK, we’ve had one mini-issue – the fairly unexciting “jobs” bill – which managed to get 62 Senate “yes” votes (hey, that included five Republicans…including the newest GOP senator, Scott Brown of Massachusetts) to forestall a filibuster on February 22^nd. The bill? “Along with a Social Security tax break to encourage businesses to hire workers, the $15-billion package would replenish the depleted Highway Trust Fund, which uses gasoline taxes to repair interstate roads; expand the Build America Bonds program, which helps state and local governments fund infrastructure projects; and allow small businesses to write off large equipment purchases immediately rather than depreciating them over several years.” February 22^nd Los Angeles Times. The 3 0 other negative votes, all Republicans, all voted to support the filibuster.

I most certainly don’t agree with the President on a whole host of issues, particularly our military path in Central Asia, but at least he is constantly making overtures to those on the other side of the aisle… who seem to be moving… not one bit. If the President can take steps toward compromise, exactly how patriotic is it to turn your back on solving problems in the hopes that your party will be able to wrest both the Congress and the Presidency in 2012?! Let the issues slide beyond the ability to repair on the hopes of a maybe political victory? Maybe they’ve been drinking too much tea. Bring back the moderates – Republicans and Democrats – and let’s get this show on the road. Or simply vote the recalcitrant bastards out of office, mules and pachyderms!

I’m seeing lots of hypocrisy, selfishness and not much “my country needs Americans” activity.