Summing up the current U.S. Government debt crisis in a nutshell is no easy task, but I'll try. As of August 2nd, the American government will run out of operating cash. That is, dollars paid out to those receiving Social Security, Medicaid and various other bills the nation needs to pay in order to function. No, the government can't just print more money, even though that is one of their functions. That explanation is complicated and too lengthy to discuss here. So to pay the bills, the state has to do what most of us plebes do when faced with a need for spending cash: get a second job. No, no, no that would be silly...besides who would be dumb enough to hire them anyway? What the government needs to do is borrow more money. The problem is, there is a set limit they are allowed to borrow, a.k.a. the debt ceiling. If this ceiling is not raised to accommodate the need for extra cash, the government will be in default. Its current credit rating would be downgraded and the state would be forced to pay higher interest on current loans (an estimated $100 billion). This cost more than likely will get passed on to taxpayers. Given the largess of the American economy, the effects of a default could lead to yet another worldwide recession.
So why hasn't this issue been resolved? The simple answer is politics.
Not the kind of politics that involve discussion and debate to further the good of the electorate. The kind of politics inhabited by self-aggrandizing, power-hungry, opportunistic, bottom-feeding morons who are more concerned about improving their standing in Washington than their constituents. You know, the ones who are struggling to pay their rent as well as the bloated salaries of their representatives.
The current stalemate in the American capital is fast-becoming the most shameless display of ideological tripe in American history.
The main players, Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican Congressional House Speaker John Boehner. Both have offered competing plans for dealing with the debt crisis. Obama's plan calls for an immediate increase in the debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion (the current ceiling is $14.294 trillion, which they already hit). Boehner's plan calls for a short-term increase, followed by another increase in 2012. Both plans call for deep cuts in federal spending, but Obama's plan calls for the closing of tax loopholes for large corporations and the country's wealthy. Naturally Boehner and the rest of the Republican gazillionaires want no part of this.
Obama sees this crisis as an opportunity to call upon America's richest individuals to cough up more of their share of the country's operating costs. Boehmer sees this crisis as a way to slash government social programs and also ressurrect this already controversial issue smack-dab in the middle of the next presidential election.
In either case, both parties acknowledge that the debt ceiling must be raised, both agree that this must accompany some spending cuts. There is actually common ground.
But that term has become an aphorism in American politics. The ideological divide in the United States has become so stark it now threatens self-destruction. This intellectual crevasse has been so exploited and overblown by ratings-crazed media outlets and political spin-masters that any notion of giving and inch risks becoming a political pariah, rendering thoughtful and responsible decision-making virtually impossible. Intelligent and complex solutions are reduced to catch-phrases and inanely oversimplified mantras used by politicians to clobber one-another senselessly at election time.
The truth is, ideology is really just smoke-and-mirrors technique to disguise the fact that this is all about power. This crazed obsession with owning the top position in Washington supersedes the real needs and desires of the populous who put these yahoos there to begin with. Now they are playing an expensive game of chicken with the livelihoods of the nation's hard-working and struggling citizens at stake.
It is beyond appalling. No wonder voter turnout is so dismal in the U.S.
The real dirty truth the media and politicians don't want you to know is that you can be conservative in some aspects of you life and you can also be liberal. It's called free-thinking, something the stuffed-suits in government blather about protecting and then try to stifle when they come sucking up for your vote.
The long and the short of this crisis is that no matter what happens, nobody will win. The electorate will have been further disenfranchised from a system that claims to protect their interests. Ultimately the cost of this political pissing contest will come directly out of their wallets.
This is typical of most political discourse these days, wherein scoring points in the polls has become the most valuable of currencies. It discards the process of informed, thoughtful and reasonable debate in favour of fast-food solutions, extremely palatable but exceedingly unhealthy. It rewards combative, uncompromising positions in a system that simply cannot function without some degree of accommodation and reason.
The great divide in America is not ideological. Ideology goes out the window fairly quickly when you are struggling to pay the mortgage, or the rent, or for a bowl of Kraft Dinner. The great divide is between politicians and the citizens they pledge to serve and not surprisingly that gap is widening by the minute.
And this is what they call the beacon of democracy?
