While stuck in traffic in a torrential downpour late yesterday afternoon, I happened to catch a little of Sean Hannity on the radio and decided to play my favorite car game "How Many Minutes Of Hannity Before Throwing Open Door To Retch". Records are made to be broken, right? Plus, one has to keep up with the prevarication du jour in order to deprogram friends and family members.
The guest during my five minute auditory water boarding was the insane and irrepressible Pat Buchanan, apparently out on work release from his cot in the green room at MSNBC.
Pat let drop something that I thought was worth paying attention to.
While he and Sean ruminated about Republican tactics and strategies for making the President and the Dems the ones ultimately responsible if the debt ceiling wasn't increased and the economy crashed, Pat Buchanan said (paraphrase) - and he was literally chortling -
"Don't you get it Sean? The Republicans have created an ongoing Budget Doomsday Machine! These talks are going to happen again and again!"
OMG! I thought, this man is absolutely correct. If the Dems keep cutting but make no inroads on increasing (real) revenue streams and the economy keeps tanking and calling for additional injections and stimulus which it will (which will most likely once again be paid to the wrong entities and people) then we will be right up against this same scenario in short order.
The Republicans will be just as recalcitrant as ever and the President will be just as capitulating (if that's what he's doing) and we will continue to have cuts to social programs, no new taxes on the wealthy, and a sop here and there geared to assuaging wealth grudge of the downtrodden poor and working class. They'll go after things like raising import tariffs on caviar and Botox. That'll show them! See how we fight for you? That's worth an organ transplant or two, isn't it?
Debt ceiling discussions are constant and ongoing.
Here's a nice "just the facts" summary of their history
President Obama so far appears to be going down a very bad and dangerous path in his "negotiations". The Republicans will never consider any cut to any social program to be adequate or any revenue increase to be necessary. He is buying in whole hog to the deficit hysteria and he himself is fueling the ongoing success of the Budget Doomsday Machine.
I had the misfortune to have a mother who was mentally ill and was extremely frustrated as a child and teenager trying to "reason" with her. I was just beside myself until one day the friend of a mother hugged me and gave me my breakthrough moment -
"Honey," she said "you just can't be rational with irrational people. Stop trying. Find another coping strategy."
If that woman were still alive, I would ask her to hug President Obama and the Dems and tell them the same thing. Every Medicare brick and Social Security log they throw on the deficit fire just makes them ask for more. The President has to make a stand at some point, it might as well be now. And the same for the voters and the Dems. Trust me, it can and will only get worse.
I can't believe I am writing these next words.
Can't we please pay attention to Pat Buchanan?
