What's It All About?

To listen to some of the ads on TV for the various politicians it would seem that we have two men arguing about the same thing, only who is more committed to doing so:  Cut the deficit, cut unemployment, create jobs, grow the economy, reduce taxes, defend the nation, etc., etc., etc.  Both insist that they are the ones who will do it, while insisting that the other guy won’t.  Recently, President Obama has even come out a statement asserting that the problem ‘can’t be fixed from the inside,’ that it can ‘only be fixed from the outside.’

What does he mean by ‘insider?’  Well, he didn’t really elaborate, but the implication was a ‘politico,’ one of those people who ‘live and breath the Washington DC air,’ who have spent their entire lives in politics and who view everything through the lens of politics.

This seems a little odd for someone – President Obama - who has been an insider since he reached law school, and has been the DC ‘fast mover’ since he was the featured speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

But let’s look at it from another perspective.  People have been complaining about the deficit for many years (though, granted it hasn’t been this extreme relative to GDP since World War II), people have been complaining about the growth in entitlement programs (again, it is worse now), people have been complaining about the complexity of the tax code and the seemingly glaring inconsistencies.  And so on and so forth.  But no one does anything about it.  Even when President Obama had overwhelming majorities for two years in both the House and Senate, not only did he not do anything about it, he didn’t even pass complete budgets for those years.  (In fact, in January, win or lose, he will become the first President in history to fail to ever pass a complete budget; another historical first, along with the downgrading of US credit ratings.)

Why, despite all the talk, is nothing being done?  Simply because all of this is, at least to those in power, is theater.  This election, perhaps more than any in recent memory, is about power.  The simple truth is that the President, and many of the leaders in the Democratic Party, is more concerned with power than with any of the problems facing the US.  Simply put, if they were asked a simple either - or question, would you trade your position in office for an elimination of the budget deficit, they would answer no.

The root of this whole mess however is that this election isn't about Republicans and Democrats, its not about foreign policy or tax policy or entitlements; this election is about power, and about the ruling clique holding power - an amorphous association of career politicians, main stream media, academia, a major slice of bureaucrats, and certain elements of the private sector that have long been in cahoots with the government (think GM, elements of the Banking and Housing industries, some union leadership, for example).  The split on the polls are laughable, with poll after poll samples so badly skewed that most of them represent no real data at all.  If President Obama wins in November - and I don't believe he will - it will only prove that those in power can manipulate the organs of government to maintain control - a fact we already knew.  Few if any of the senior members of the Federal Bureaucracy really care if there is a debt problem or a default or a ten year recession or a global depression.  What they care about is whether they maintain, and if possible increase their span of power.  

Where does that leave us?  First, we need to vote in November, vote to remove the incumbent from the White House, and to turn over control of the Senate.  Then we need to hold the Republicans accountable.  And vote them out in 4 years if they fail to improve the state of the nation.  But, more importantly, we find ourselves in a position that is really no different then where most countries have found themselves from time to time throughout history.  What is does beg is the question: What do we really do?  It suggests that there needs to be a few amendments to the Constitution to wrest more power from the 3 branches (and maybe also bringing the '4th branch' (the Federal Reserve) under some sort of control that is responsive to the citizenry.  We must limit the power of the government to tax, limit the power to spend, limit the power to pass eternal legislation, and finally limit the power of the executive to create de facto legislation under the title of ‘regulations.’  Actually, all of that is possible.  But WE THE PEOPLE will have to do it, because the guys in power don’t want to let go.