Not Lincoln's Republican Party, nor Eisenhower's either
by Tom Sullivan
The Washington Post's Editorial Board scolds Republican presidential hopefuls (with the exception of Jeb!) for "kneeling before [Grover] Norquist’s make-believe anti-tax theology."
It is ludicrous, the Board believes, to "pre-reject an entire range of policy options" for dealing with government spending projected to expand from the 20.1 percent of gross domestic product the U.S. averaged from 1965 to 2014 to 25.3 percent by 2014:
At that time, federal revenue is projected to equal about 19.4 percent of GDP absent any policy changes. There is, in other words, a vast budget gap that will need to be filled. Unlike his opponents, Mr. Christie has proposed specific benefit cuts that would narrow the gap somewhat. But neither his proposals, nor any other, can close the gap entirely in the absence of increased revenue. Trying to do so would leave the government paying pensions and rising interest costs (as it borrowed more and more) and devoting little or nothing to the other things Americans expect from government: defense, roads, bridges, basic scientific research, national parks and more.
When it comes to blowing up things or threatening other countries with sanctions or invasion, Republicans take nothing "off the table." When it comes to paying bills or leaving their country better than they found it, they take away the table.
A colleague this week expressed frustration (and I don't work among lefties) at how, as The Wire's Frank Sobotka once said, "We used to make shit in this country." Now we don't seem to have the stomach for it. It might cost us money. We've broken faith with the promise. We've outsourced our dreams. As the highways decay, all our so-called leaders want to do is suck the marrow out of America's bones. Building things is too risky and too much work:
Flag-pin-wearing American exceptionalists tell crowds this is the greatest nation on Earth, and then repeat “we’re broke.” They hope to dismantle safety net programs, telling Americans working harder than ever – at jobs and looking for jobs – that they don’t have enough “skin in the game.” Wake up and smell the austerity. America can no longer afford Americans.
No guts, no glory? The GOP has neither. Too many in the Democratic Party as well. The most the clown car can manage is saber rattling and bullying — Viagra for the visionless.
Those who can't make it in chop-shop capitalism, America's growing homeless population? Those we we declare illegal as persons. We "criminalize homelessness itself in situations where people simply have nowhere else to sleep." It's easier than tackling the problem itself.
Easy money. That's the metric of success we've substituted for an America that was on the move during the Eisenhower and Kennedy years. What was it Peter Fonda said at about easy money the end of 1969's Easy Rider? "We blew it." Our political and economic leaders never got the memo.
The only remedy the clown car has to offer is another bleeding.