A Non-Partisan View Of Partisanship

I'm sure everyone is as tired as I am of the climate of narrow partisanship that has existed in Washington since, it seems, sometime shortly after Clinton's first in-office affair. It just seems, even in the face of the serious issues we face today, that Congress cannot break out of the pattern of petty partisan bickering. The current poster child is the sorry excuse for a Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

First of all, it is clear from nearly all her public utterances that she views her job first and foremost as making the Republicans look as bad as possible. Like most people, my exposure to her is limited to what the media allows, but given their overwhelming left-lean, I assume we're seeing her at her best. It just seems like everything this woman says contains some petty dig at the other party, blaming them for everything from the Bubonic Plague to Global Warming. She is the female version of the back-alley thug. I also see no indication that she has the least comprehension of the current financial mess. I mean, this chick is dumber than dirt. I may have missed one, but all I have heard are the most general platitudes and barely coherent statements on the subject, uttered thru a Botox-induced mask. Heck, if they were looking for a hard-line partisan, why didn't they just put Rahm Emmanuel in -- at least he's more likely to grasp the important problems that face the country.

But let's be fair (stick with me here): in the days leading up to Gulf War II, the preponderance of evidence was that Saddam had WMD. I'm sorry, but if you didn't think so at the time, you probably also thought OJ was innocent. The potential consequences of continuing to be jerked around by Saddam were not pleasant, and everyone who saw the evidence agreed that something had to be done, and pretty soon. Since everything else had been tried during the 12 years since the first attempt, invasion to take out Saddam and find the WMD's was the last resort. Fast forward to 2005 and thru the last Presidential election, and the hindsight-filled, strident partisan carping was incessant, and completely illogical in view of the fact that nearly all Democrats had signed onto the War.

Fast forward again to today: when it became clear that the current financial mess had the potential to shove the economy over the cliff, pretty much everyone agreed that something, anything had to be done (if for no other reason than appearance), and the sooner the better. After all, those who had studied it knew that the Hands Off approach hadn't worked that well for Herbert Hoover. Not everyone agreed with the current President's approach but, like it or not, he won, and there was a general sense that the country couldn't afford partisan gridlock at this critical juncture. So, again like it or not, the Stimulus Package was passed. If nothing else, this gave people the sense that Washington was doing something to address what was threatening to be a catastrophe. Yes, no Republicans voted for it, but they also knew it would pass without them, so they got to make a statement without the risk.

Now what we have, it seems to me, is disingenuous partisan carping from the Right (both Republican Congressional leaders and major talk shows) complaining, completely out of context, that Obama's budget will drive the budget deficit to triple what it was under Bush, or whatever the distressing numbers are. OK, that may be true (my calculator doesn't have that many digits), but a huge portion of that is to finance an attempt to keep the country from sliding into another Great Depression, whether you agree with the approach or not. Sure, we don't have the money and yes, we're saddling our progeny with debt, but what are the alternatives? What will our children (yours -- I don't have any) think if we do nothing and leave them with an economic wasteland that could last decades? As I have profoundly pointed out before, none of us has a crystal ball, but in my humble, non-economist opinion, I'd rather see Washington doing something than nothing, if for no other reason than the sense of security it conveys, which might boost public confidence enough to get people to spend a little money, which is how we will be pulled out of this.

I wonder how much we could save by cutting off all benefits to illegal aliens, who have now apparently added Swine Flu to what they bring to the country? It would probably be a drop in the old bucket, but it sure would make a lot of sense. That, and channeling Draco for ideas to punish employers for hiring them, in my still humble opinion, is the answer. Border patrol is nice, but does anyone remember the Maginot Line? But that's a subject for another rant.