Americans, don’t misguide your anger about the shutdown and the near default, which permanently lost us some $24 billion in economic output, according to Standard and Poor (S&P). Apply reason to the issue so that you can correct the menacing forces that cause all our problems – there can be no doubt it is specifically the Tea Party caucus and generally the GOP.
We must follow the narrative of what is happening in our name, in the halls of our Congress. The shutdown and near default are over, but still no real budget has been struck. We’ve had none for 3 years. That is left to a committee behind Paul Ryan, Republican in the House, and a committee behind Patty Murray, a Democrat in the Senate. Simply put, the former, Paul Ryan, wants to cut social security, gut Obamacare, and savage Medicare; the Democrats, to keep these safety nets intact.
Now to make it simple, think of the fight between the two characters in the Roadrunner cartoon (If you’re not familiar: http://kevinmccorrytv.webs.com/rrshow.htm). Paul Ryan is Wile E. Coyote and Patty Murray is the Roadrunner. In each episode, instead of animal senses and animal cunning, Wile E. Coyote (Paul Ryan, representing the Tea Party & the GOP) uses absurdly complex contraptions and elaborate plans to pursue his quarry, the Roadrunner (Patty Murray, and the Democrats she represents).
The contraption that Ryan (the GOP) uses is presenting a distorted view of government, menacing and ineffective, to make room for lower taxes for the rich and less services for everyone else. The latest elaborate plan was a government shutdown and default, hopelessly doomed for failure as long as the Roadrunner (Patty Murray and Democrats) stuck together and followed a defensible counter plan.
Certainly Wile E. Coyote is relentless, deluded and feckless, just like the GOP and the Tea Party. They not only scamper over fiscal cliffs, staying aloft by mere stubborn motion, but also believe that the default or shutdown cliff does not contain gravity – this before they fall in the precipice below. But it’s only pain in a cartoon bubble. Like the Coyote, they dust themselves off, and begin the next episode, once again on the same cliff, defying gravity.
As viewers of these episodes, if we watch closely, we know that the Wile E. Coyote (Paul Ryan and the GOP) has used elaborate plans (one shutdown and default threat after the other) and contraptions (ploys to cut any social spending like defunding birth control measures or demonizing Obamacare) to shrink government – except for defense and war – in order to cut taxes for the rich by cutting benefits for everyone else. Ultimately, he (the GOP) wants power and control.
At this point, the result has been no permanent budget and continued sequester spending, which arose from an earlier extortion episode, the last contrived plan of default in 2011. Therefore, we still have sequester spending, which is near the Ryan budget level ($967 billion), this with forced cuts of $80 billion since March 1st. It trims all expenditures. But Ryan’s goal is to cut just social expenditures, like education, food stamps, Medicaid, Head Start, social security and Medicare.
Do you know the next episode? Now, what cuts do you think Wile E. Coyote is going to negotiate to the budget proposal for December 13th, the negotiated deadline? Will he agree to new revenue? No way! Will the Roadrunner’s (Patty Murray) support (the Democrats and Obama) cave and cut safety net spending?
I expect nothing meaningful from these negotiations in the short run – we’ll be lucky if we don’t have another default in January, 2014. Since this is not a cartoon and people do get hurt, in the long run we can vote out all Republicans in the House, starting with the Tea Party members. Just the continued real threat of this might avert another shutdown and/or default.
Remember the 2013 shutdown and near default. The S&P says it cost us $24 billion but the 2011 near default cost us billions in added interest for government bonds, and the 1979 near default by Republicans, when Carter was president, cost us billions more.
The only real solution is to vote out the GOP, starting with the Tea Party.
