Understanding the Debt Ceiling Deal
Boehner has thrown in with the governmentalist Looters. Is he ignorant of the fact that he's helping to kill the nation?
Shortly before this column was published the House of Representatives approved a deal on the debt ceiling debate and life will go back to normal, until the next time that loudmouth at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue screams that the entire world will be sucked into a gigantic chipper-shredder unless he gets his way. The Senate can be expected to follow suit. But more important than the next impending fake disaster is exactly why the Democrats and their allies cannot understand the TEA Party inspired legislators who refuse to be bought, and won't compromise their principles on government spending. This issue is the other side of the coin of why the big government types cannot stop spending and regulating.
An interesting perspective on this issue was provided by the Trifecta Team at PJTV the other day when they invoked a scene from Atlas Shrugged. John Galt is being begged by the Looters (as Any Rand rightfully calls them) to solve the nation's economic problems. Galt tells them to get out of the way, that is return to the free market. They refuse and Galt says that they have nothing more to discuss. This was the bottom line issue at bar in the debt ceiling debate, although no one appears to have actually said it in the halls of Congress. It may be about time that they did.
What so many people fail to understand is that we are facing the same issues in our real world as Ayn Rand's characters did in her philosophical novel. Government had taken over everything and as a result nothing worked. Yet, the people in charge didn't understand why the more they taxed and spent and regulated the worse everything became. It seemed to them that some mysterious force was working against them. After all, what they wanted was to make things better, not worse. It made no sense (to them).
That's the paradox of the free market. When someone believes that regulation brings about prosperity a free market makes no sense. Someone who believes in eliminating risk cannot comprehend that doing so also eliminates the possibility of reward. To the entrepreneur and the gambler it makes perfect sense, but to the political hack and his or her colleagues trapped inside the beltway it doesn't. They believe that they are doing the right thing and their intentions govern their expectations.
When big government advocates take the extreme measure of consulting the management of giant businesses such as GE they invariably get the wrong information. Companies of such size and sophistication have learned that they can use political influence for their benefit; the market be damned if they can make a few million more bucks by eliminating competition. They know that government regulation is the easiest way to do it. How do you expect to get valid information from an unreliable source operating from an ulterior motive?
Just the other day Nancy Pelosi was recorded talking about how she saw her role in politics as relating to her role as a mother and grandmother. This certainly fits; Pelosi has finally admitted to what a lot of people have been accusing her of for years; trying to be the nation's mother in chief because she believes that she knows what's best for everyone. To take it a step farther, she fails to understand one of the comments she made in connection with the above. There are things you can't provide for your children. So, instead of admitting it and letting the children do it themselves, she insists on persisting in the vain attempt. Intentions, once again get in the way of reality.
To cut to the short answer, Nancy Pelosi believes in social engineering and that no one can achieve their needs or desires without the engineers and managers helping them or providing it to order. It is likely that engineer Herbert Hoover had a similar belief when he intervened after the stock market crash of 1929 and made things worse, after which FDR did more of the same creating the Great Depression. This is essentially the same attitude that led to the enactment of the recent "Affordable Health Care Act" aka Obamacare which is making health care more expensive and will likely destroy our health care system completely if not repealed.
To return to political impasse, the "obstructionist" TEA Party types have little or no common ground with the professional politician types. They have lives outside the beltway, and unlike many of the fat cats, they have reason to be concerned about the future wellbeing of their family members. Because they aren't fat cats that future depends on something other than trust funds. They know that the nation is being driven off a cliff and they don't like it. The opposition won't understand this, because they equate intent with results. When the economy finally hits the wall and either implodes or resorts to hyperinflation they won't understand that either. Only a fool like Joe Biden would declare that continued profligate spending shows financial responsibility. He probably believes it too, because it will benefit the nation ... until it doesn't and then he and his friends will have what they need to survive the disaster that will befall everyone else. It is likely that, as Hitler did when the Red Army entered Berlin, Pelosi, Reid, Obama and company will blame the people for not being worthy instead of their own misguided policies. It would only be fitting.
This writer has been very disappointed in some of the big name political commentators who have suggested that it is time to declare a " moral victory" and take what we can get from a less than ideal congressional bill. That's not the point. A moral victory would mean delaying national destruction for another 10 or 20 years. But what is happening in Washington DC right now is nothing less than a fight for the nation's survival. If the government backs down and stops spending the people will win and the nation may survive. If the government looters win then the nation will eventually fall, and in today's world of rapidly moving events that could be all too soon. It took centuries for Rome to fall. Today it could take only a year or so. Perhaps less.
Unfortunately in the House vote the looters won. That's not even a moral victory. It is pretending that you aren't committing suicide even as you pull the trigger on the gun pressed to your head.
We all know that definition of insanity - doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. When the government Looters expected John Galt to get them out of trouble by engineering a government solution they were continuing their insanity. Pelosi and Reid are just as insane. What you conclude about Obama depends upon whether you believe he wants to help America but doesn't understand how, or that he is out to destroy the nation because of a perverted hatred of capitalist success. Either way, disaster will follow. The motivation is irrelevant.
America's John Galts are its small business owners, and its ordinary citizens who live their lives by common sense. Government doesn't listen to them because it doesn't understand how such common people could know better than they do. But common sense dictates that you can't spend your way to prosperity and you can't regulate your way to freedom. If government doesn't get out of the way it will thwart its own professed goals.
As Bobby Eberle wrote on August 1, 2011, "Why does an "immediate" cut take 10 years?" This question is right on point. The recent "deals" have all amounted to immediate increases in spending that exceed the graduated spending cuts. The result is that the vast majority of these projected cuts won't take place and are, in fact, decreases in anticipated increases in future spending. No, that isn't double talk.
The House of Representatives, despite all the media coverage to the contrary has just given away the store. Obama got what he wanted and the people got nothing. Boehner and company have just thrown in with the looters and have decided to kill the nation. After all, they will survive. Who cares about the rest of the people.
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