weekly response

...America voted for divided government, not dysfunctional government...

But, President Obama contends in this week's address, a dysfunctional government we have. And although the President officially disagrees with Standard & Poor's downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, he would surely agree with this one main thrust of the report:

"We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process."

Contentious and fitful. Like children. Or, perhaps more relevantly, like pillars of hubris, swollen with pride, holding the course so as not to appear weak.

As such, in the aftermath of the debt ceiling hoo-ha, Republicans remain adamantly opposed to tax hikes for the rich. This might feel good inside, but the House majority is not doing itself any favors. On the contrary, they have everything to gain by backpedaling, even just a touch. Approval of Congress is at a historic low, and numerous polls (I'll link one example) show that a majority of Americans, even a majority of Republican voters, want the newly-anointed bipartisan "supercommittee" to reach a compromise.

I'm confident that the sooner Republicans stop hollering about "no new taxes," the less silly they will appear. Wouldn't it make sense to count the deficit war as a political victory and move on? After all, they made the President look weak, triggered a credit downgrade which wreaked havoc on the stock market, and took a wonderfully uncompromising stand against taxes. Now would be an ideal time to pick some fresh, new talking points before the public begins to notice the real-world consequences of this round of GOP political bullying. After all, Standard and Poor's has noticed, and they've raised quite the stink. That's sort of like police lights in your rearview mirror. A fair time to pull over, even if you were literally in the middle of saying that you'll never get a speeding ticket.

But the party faithful prattles on. At the Republican presidential debate last night, when asked if they would reject a deal that concedes one dollar of tax increases for every ten dollars of spending cuts, all eight candidates stuck their hands up like a band of crazed teacher's pets. Not a flicker of hesitation.

I understand that in a primary campaign, it is sometimes necessary to appeal to the party base, but I honestly think these people are not helping themselves. The American public can indeed be fooled, and we don't always pay close attention to important, relevant political matters. But when it's this obvious, when politicians repeatedly flout their refusal to compromise, their ideological stasis, for such an extended period of time, few thinking voters will take them seriously. So what are they trying to accomplish?