Model T Governance in a Corvette World

            For many months, America has been waiting for the House to conference with the Senate and pass a budget.  Our Representatives, who swore to uphold the Constitution, have refused even to meet with the Senate to try to resolve differences.  In a couple of weeks, we will reach our ‘debt ceiling’ without so much as a whisper of willingness by the House to meet its obligations.  This will lead to a crisis filled with long overdue activity, essentially motion, not action, by the same House that sent nearly a million people to the streets on furlough.  Are they representing you?

            So now these Representatives are poor-mouthing about all the bad things the government is doing to comply, and they are passing, tick by trudging tick, little mini bills to fix this or that embarrassing consequence of their own recalcitrance.  Just like a Model T Ford, they are putt-putting their way down the road to reason, complaining all the way.  When America needs Corvette-fast action, like an unencumbered Continuing Resolution and a pre-deadline increase in the debt ceiling, they are giving us swirling sooty spin fit only for Model T exhaust fumes.

            Continuing Resolutions, by the way, are an irresponsible way for the House to meet its Constitutional obligation to fund the government.  Irresponsible and lazy.  So, around here when they say they share our values and ask for our vote, we’ll just tell them we want a congress that sings, not one that sputters.

Don't Bother, They're Here

            If you don’t meet our demands, we will temporarily eliminate your government, at no cost to ourselves, until you stop causing us to eliminate your government and bend to our will.  If you meet our demands, you can keep your government.  What kinds of clowns think this way?  The ones we elected!  Now do you see the error of your ways?

            Send in the clowns who believe it is ethical to damage our economy and millions of American citizens if the President and the Senate fail to throw away one of the laws of our land.  And by the way, nothing in that law is unconstitutional.  Nothing in that law will cause anywhere near the wreckage inflicted by a government shutdown.

            Send in the clowns who can waste millions of taxpayer dollars, repeatedly failing to overturn a law, then make these threats and say they are doing it to protect Americans from “the tyranny of the majority.”  They are bullies threatening to bloody America’s nose.  Some of them even believe the falsehood-based story they are telling.  They are probably the most dangerous—they don’t even realize they are joined in a tyranny of the minority. 

            Send in the clowns who think there is something proper about running a government on stopgap Continuing Resolutions in the first place.  This is a signal of intellectual failure and practical ineptitude, for which Americans pay 24-7-365. 

            On second thought, don’t bother.  Around here, we think the clowns are already in the House.

Malicious Misrepresentation

            The U. S. House has passed legislation that would embarrass the Grinch.  It injures all but financially secure people, like congresspersons, and other wealthy Americans.  It impacts families struggling to survive on multiple no-benefit part-time jobs, families burdened with food insecurity and at risk for malnutrition, and toddlers needing our help.  These extreme anti-government radicals want to deny millions of Americans affordable health care, nutritional assistance, and any semblance of economic fair play.  They are shooting dice with America’s future to get their way.

            These radicals know that their “Big Lie” will be exposed if the Affordable Care Act is not de-funded, or at least delayed, and America will discover a program that works and helps millions.  They know that their “anti-fraud” SNAP cutbacks will be a gut-punch to America’s needy, and will not address fraud at all.  A congressional effort to curtail food stamp fraud would eliminate the need for cutbacks, (if their argument has any merit) because thwarting fraud would save the 5% they insist on cutting.  So why not eliminate the fraud and the need to spend?  It’s a geek trick. 

            These radicals claim Americans want them to trash our country’s economy and reputation if they are not permitted to inflict hardship and malnourishment on America’s most vulnerable.  Who among us wants that?  You?  Will you stand and say that’s what YOU want?  The House is representing humbug economics.  Not America’s majority.  They are misrepresenting us, you and me, in a desperately nasty way.

Reality Check

            Make no mistake about it, whatever the emotional response (see: Getting Syria’s) to Syria’s gassing of hundreds of its citizens, a military response from us is unwarranted.  Here’s why:

1. A missile strike on Syria would kill Syrians in order to prevent the killing of Syrians.  Does that make sense?
2. Say we were having a civil war in America, maybe between the well-armed 1% and the rag-tag 99%.  Who among us would like the United Nations, or any member nation, to drop bombs in our country?
3. An international treaty exists that declares the use of chemical weapons, even in war, unacceptable.  Almost none of the parties to this treaty wish to shed one dollar to enforce it.
4. Syria is not a party to the treaty—never signed it.  The world has known that they HAVE chemical weapons for decades.  Nobody cared enough to act.  Meanwhile, would YOU like to be held accountable for observing the terms of agreements to which you never agreed?
5. The law of unintended consequences (think Murphy’s Law), by which we have been jostled in Iraq and Afghanistan, may provide destabilizing, entangling and catastrophic consequences we don’t anticipate.  We don’t fear other nations, or terrorists.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fear our greatest enemy: stupidity.
6. Syria is a sovereign nation, just in case that means anything.

I’ve missed several cogent points, but you get the idea.  Around here, emotions aside, we think America should use its missile money to help refugees and their host countries.  

Getting Syria's

            John Kerrey says over 1400 Syrians, including 426 children, died in the gas attack that originated in Assad-controlled Syria and hit rebel-controlled or contested Syria.  Anyone still thinking war resembles its movie or game station portrayals can wake up now.  As the outrages accumulate, predictions are that (absent a war crime heinous enough to bring about surrender) the civil war in Syria may rage on for years.  I guess Americans know a little something about that, including: it ain’t over when it’s over.  Thus we feel some relief knowing our Syrian foreign policy is not ‘Iraq-ish.’  That may have less to do with smarts than with Syrian defense systems.  Prudence, like revenge, thrives in the cold.

            Meanwhile much has been made of Obama’s ‘red line’ and the world’s perception of America’s will to back up its words.  Most of that is just foggy bottom flim-flam.  Who in the world doubts that America will take military action, however advisedly, when it sees fit?  It has happened so much in recent years that even the fact-starved American people are questioning what war begets.  So far it’s mostly bravery, injury, outrage and abandonment. 

            Assuming our intelligence is not ‘Iraq-ish,’ what should be done to send a message to Syria?  Around here, we think the world should strike at what Assad values most—material things—with 426 cruise missles, one for each dead child, aimed at Assad’s homes, offices, and government buildings.  But send a postcard first—we don’t want anyone hurt.       

Welfare

            As Peter Rogers indicated on 8/29, when the city subsidizes a municipal golf course, it is providing welfare for the members of that golf course.  If you asked among them, each one would probably proclaim opposition to government welfare.  But there it is.  When you think about it, the city is providing welfare to citizens by maintaining public parks and pools too.  We non-golfers who like the occasional park picnic don’t have a problem with that.  So, we’ve established that government welfare is acceptable, if often unacknowledged.

            The problem is that golfers share an image with many sports enthusiasts of being people with a little pocket change to spare.  Is welfare for these people in our present day Ebenezer Scrooge economy OK?  A plethora of politicians, also encumbered of a financially happy reputation, are striving to steal away the food security of thousands by scrooging shut their SNAP purse.  And who hasn’t felt the energy sting, thought of old Scrooge, and tried to use fewer lumps of coal?  Amid all the tribulation, should government provide welfare to golfers?

            Well, we certainly don’t want them putting through our picnics.  So at least welfare contains them, like a Jurassic Park might do.  Seriously though, Rogers identifies that the problem really is in the prognosis—not whether, but how much subsidy is prudent.  Right now it is a LOT of welfare, without much prospect for reduction.  Around here, we think taxpayers should consider this dilemma and express their opinions on the issue.