D-Day Approaching

As summer winds down and the nation's political pundits begin to return to the keyboards and the Kleig lights, they will surely describe this fall as 'momentous'. And they will be right--but predictably, for the wrong reasons.

What we will be treated to is endless speculation about whether the Democrats can retain control of Congress, how much President Obama is to blame, and--of course--how this impacts the 2012 elections. What they will largely miss is the much more compelling issue of what happens to the expiring Bush tax cuts.

As a nation, we spend more than we make. We know this. What we've been told to believe for the last decade is that this really doesn't matter--the same way that saying seven martinis really won't cause a hangover. It's nice to consider...but inevitably, the morning comes. So Congress, as a whole, will have three options: a) let the tax cuts expire, so that some semblance of sanity returns, allowing us to start paying the bill for all those martinis; b) order another round; or c) hope no one is paying attention and change the subject--'hey, what do you think about Palin in '12?'

It's nice that some Americans really do care about this stuff, even if they have entirely contradictory ideas on how to solve the problem. On one hand, "lower taxes mean more business growth--that's your solution. Plus, the government wastes everything it collects anyway". Or, "the role of government is to help people--even if all the lobbyists want to take my tax money and give it to their fat cat clients".

Well, I'm not going to spend any time in this post arguing one point over another. Let me just offer two issues to consider:
1) Doing nothing is a terrible option. We can stand on the bridge of the Titanic looking at the iceberg and pretend it isn't there...but the iceberg isn't going to move. Course correction is mandatory.
2) When the arguments erupt about what direction to turn, we can't afford to invent our own facts. The government spends too much money? OK, but before one starts decrying 'waste'...and 'welfare queens'...and 'foreign aid'...and 'food stamps for the lazy'...and all the other shameless shibboleths...consider this. Social Security...Medicare/Medicaid...and defense spending each eat up about 20% of the federal budget. Throw in what we spend in interest to pay back the people overseas who have kindly funded all of our Cadillac Escalades, and you have two-thirds of everything your federal government spends. If you want to fix the problem, you have to start here. Nothing else will make a dent.

So, do we return to the insanity of the Clinton years...where they imposed the crazy idea that government should only spend what it takes in? Or do we continue the Bush cocktail party...believing that tomorrow morning will never come?

Or, 'hey--what about Palin in '12?'