Screwed 3.0
Now we enter the next phase of the Great Disruption, where political dysfunction meets unsustainability. The Greek debt crisis is helping prepare the way for American panic about the federal deficit and national debt. These two maladies are a cause célèbre for the Tea Party. The supposedly left-wing media are on board. USA Today headline: "Nation's soaring debt calls for painful choices." Tom Friedman of the New York Times: "After 65 years in which politics in the West was, mostly, about giving
things away to voters, it’s now going to be, mostly, about taking things
away. Goodbye Tooth Fairy politics, hello Root Canal politics." Isn't he cute? I can't wait for the idiot David Brooks to weigh in. (He's already written about how "as
government grew, the anti-government right mobilized. This produced the
Tea Party Movement — a characteristically raw but authentically American
revolt led by members of the yeoman enterprising class…As government became more threatening…" Funny, he means the Obama administration, not the Bush wars, shredding of civil liberties and crony capitalism leading to trillions in federal bailouts, i.e., government growing.) You see, we're just like Greece — a profligate nation that needs to tighten its belt, cut government.
The reality, of course, is very different. Whatever his failings, Bill Clinton showed that seemingly intractable red ink could be turned into surpluses. The present deficit and debt is almost entirely a creation of the Bush tax cuts, the Bush wars and the Bush bailout of Wall Street (for which Sen. Obama voted). The fiscal situation was made more severe by the worst recession since the Great Depression. It's as if FDR fought World War II twice as long, cut rather than raised taxes, and did all this in the worst part of the Depression while using federal money for the banksters rather than the people. It's a wonder the deficit is so low as a percentage of GDP. It is not a cause for hysteria.
But, ah, dear reader, it will be used. "You never want to let a serious crisis to go to waste," said White House tough guy Rahm Emanuel, who is letting the real crises of the Great Disruption do just that. The extreme white-right — the idiot David Brooks' "yeoman enterprising class" — and the plutocracy will use the "crisis" of federal spending to their own ends. And if the effectiveness of their party as the minority in Congress is any indication, wait until they take the House this year from a feckless Democratic Party. And then the Senate and White House. Prepare for Screwed 3.0
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