Today’s NY Times reports the Fed Reserve chairman warned Congress that projected growth in entitlements under Soc. Sec. and medicaid threaten the economy. This is not news, but never-mind. Anyway, what I want to rant about is contained in this paragraph on Congressional reaction to Bernanke :
“His comments also dovetailed with statements by the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., favoring efforts to curb the cost of entitlements this year, despite skepticism among some lawmakers that painful steps to deal with the problem cannot be taken two years before a presidential election.”
According to that observation–which I think is as honest as it is damning– America is un-govrernable 50% of the time. (Maybe more, as opponents of any major controversial effort know they can defeat it merely by delaying initiative for the first half of a presidential term.) America isn’t unmanageable–it continues its headless running around without direction—but it isn’t governing itself.
That to me is the headline. “America Out of Control Half the Time” Or that would be the headline if it were news to anybody. That you can’t do anything—like, say, withdraw from Iraq—within 2 years of a presidential election is pretty much accepted as fact by press, public, and obviously politicians. So it isn’t a headline. It isn’t news. Just like it isn’t news that social security is broke. That is accepted reality right along with the accepted reality that half the time the country simply can’t make big decisions. We’re old and tired. And sick.
America has political sclerosis. The vessels feeding and healing it are all plugged up with the plaque of money, and celebrity and mass stupidity. Maybe we lost our will? What do you call it when there is wide recognition that something needs to be done–get out of Iraq or secure SS–coupled with wide acceptance that nothing will be done?