Can't we just get along?
As I was watching CSPAN one evening I was surprised to learn two very important things. The first was that the process in which our Congress discusses issues and executes solutions is broken in such a profound way we may need to just start that thing over. The second was I didn’t think I was a democrat anymore. This was the first time I had a thought like that as I have been a democrat since I decided to pay attention to politics.
I was born in 1971, so by the time I cared at all about the president it was during the Reagan administration with massive deficit spending as well as high treason in the form of the whole Iran-Contra affair. Ollie didn’t do that alone. This was followed by Bush senior who slammed me with two messages. Those were that we were at war with drugs and he would impose no new taxes. Drugs were more resilient than Iraq so though we ran Saddam out of Kuwait drugs won the war, and then Bush of course had to raise taxes and so died the failed idea of Supply Side Economics. Or so we thought. Bush senior only served one term because the people felt he went back on his word of no new taxes. People didn’t seem to consider that we were engaged in a war and the economy was limping by. Since we actually started recording history no society had ever fought a war without raising taxes so Bush got blasted for doing the right thing. His son George W. would show us what happens when you fight a war and lower taxes. It’s really great.
Then came The Man from Hope. Clinton was the first president in my lifetime that I actually liked. He seemed to be in tune with the people that elected him, and even cool to a point which was an attribute missing from the White House since Kennedy. I fell in line with this guy and began to pay careful attention to what he was doing. When the 1993 Clinton-Gore Deficit Reduction Act was passed I actually read it. This historic event marks the first time I read a bill, and it actually made sense. It also passed without a single republican vote. Strange that the party that wanted fiscal discipline and less spending wouldn’t get behind a bill that was pushing for exactly those two things. Now I started paying attention to the Republicans because I wanted to understand why they wouldn’t support their own ideals. Remember I was 22 years old and not a political science student, so I really didn’t know at this point. Clinton messed around on his wife and got caught. He lied about the affair and dug the hole deeper. Although I was amazed that an impeachment hearing was called for this, I now know of course Newt Gingrich and his boys were going to attack Clinton any way they could. The economy was booming, unemployment was down, the Russians didn’t want to kill us, and China didn’t own us yet. Monica Lewinsky was the best they could do so they went with it. Clinton was wrong for what he did, and the rest of Washington was wrong for spending millions trying to bring him down for it.
In 2001 George W. Bush took the reins of the country firmly in his hands and fell fast asleep. I assume he was dreaming of oil, which would become relevant to his presidency in a few years. When I say he was asleep of course I’m exaggerating. He was on vacation, so I’m sure he was up and about doing something. Charles Krauthammer wrote an article for The Washington Post called “A Vacation Bush Deserves” on 8-10-01. In this article Mr. Krauthammer analyzed what the president spent his time on during his first eight months in office. The analysis showed that President Bush spent 42% of this time either traveling to a vacation, on a vacation, or returning from a vacation. I have not personally crunched these numbers so I can’t be certain they are accurate, but from what evidence I have seen I bet they are in the ballpark. Nine months into his presidency Bush Jr. started paying attention because the terrorist threat he heard people talking about hit home. No need to discuss 9-11, it is horrifying and may not be Bush’s fault though it is his responsibility. This event was a springboard for a legitimate attack on Afghanistan, an illegal war in Iraq, loss of liberty in the United States, and a mortal strike to the economy. Remember earlier I mentioned that no society had ever gone to war without raising taxes? President Bush went to war and lowered taxes. A twisted version of Reagan’s Supply Side Economics returned to further weaken the U.S. economy, and man it worked. Bush’s version of this economic plan was a free-market ideology designed to de-emphasize the role of government in the private sector and it did so in the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. Tax Reconciliation is a great way of saying reducing taxes. The name suggests that the government is returning something that it shouldn’t have taken. I think that’s an interesting view. We will move on without discussing hurricane Katrina because this isn’t an “I Hate Bush” rally. I do, but that’s not what this is about.
Barack Hussein Obama took over what may be the biggest mess in American history in 2009. Although he has not yet had enough time to get done what he has set out to do, it appears he is trying. It is unfortunate that he is being fought tooth and nail by Congress to make the country better. That sounds incredibly biased and I almost deleted that last line but I can’t seem to find another way to word it. I agree Obama’s ideas are far from perfect, but they are better than where we are now. It would also seem that his ideas are either clearly superior to others being offered or the only ones on the table. These are very generalized statements, but the message I’m going for here is I’m hoping for the best but not enough is happening right now. The Republicans are doing everything in their power to keep Obama from achieving anything, and more than a few opportunistic Democrats are taking advantage of this by trying to sell their support for bills as opposed to voting their conscience.
And this brings me to my crisis of faith. Can I support a party that can’t manage its own affairs, support its own ideals, or use its power to correct the crippling problems of the recent past? I need to take a close look at the Democratic and Republican Parties and see exactly where I fit in.
