US Politics Opinion: Loathing and More Loathing in Washington DC

A wise man once told me there were two things in this world you do not want to see made: sausages and a political deal.

And so it is with the news that that the legislative and executive branches of the US Government have reached agreement on lifting the US debt ceiling, a step which should have been a formality. We are being treated to congratulatory statements by America’s political leaders of common sense prevailing and of the spirit of compromise.

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Historically, President Nixon had détente and rapprochement. President Reagan dealt with an era of glasnost and perestroika. Now President Obama’s Congress gives us myopia and chutzpah. There will be no tax increases, which will infuriate the left and satisfy the right. However, the initial cuts will not please those on the right wanted deeper reductions, even as they anger the left that provision for the infirm and aged has been reduced.

Politics, if not economics, seem to have triumphed because America will not have to re-live this debt ceiling fiasco until 2013, by which time President Obama may or may not live in the White House. But lest any of EA’s readers think the legislative posturing has been in the best interests of the country, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's quoted declaration on Sunday was that all the damage will be worth it if the Republicans can get Obama out of the White House.

Modern deficit financing started with the Democrat Lyndon Johnson but the Republican Richard Nixon found it useful. President Reagan turned it into an art form, but it was the younger George Bush who converted art into destruction, raising the debt to unmanageable proportions. Republicans will not acknowledge the simple fact that their party created and approved the current economic mess. When you juxtapose this with the Democratic myopia that entitlements are written in stone, what is a President to do?

If you find a touch of exasperation in my words, I apologise. But it’s not good to let children run riot with grown-up things like law-making.