Our political Quote of the Day comes from The Daily Beast’s John Avlon, who looks at “Our Pathetic Congress” and how it’s poised to help the United States commit economic suicide. It’s worth looking at key chunks of his column:
The fiscal cliff is, of course, the world’s most predictable crisis. Congress set this time bomb themselves—and now they can’t agree on how to defuse it, despite more than a year of debate and a presidential election largely centered on the subject.
And just think how ironic it is: Congress so far has failed to LIVE UP TO ITS OWN EXPECTATIONS that it could put political partisanship, ideological hackery and quintessential political cowardice aside for the good of the country.
How could they be so naive? MORE:
In a surreal twist, Democrats are readying bills for the first days of the new congress to pass the largest middle-class tax cut in American history if they can’t get enough Republicans to agree we shouldn’t go over the cliff.
The implications are not adequately captured by the catchy visual metaphor. Not only will your taxes be raised, but America’s economic recovery could be reversed, with congressional incompetence pushing America back into recession.
Congressional approval now stands at 18 percent. The real question is why is it so high?
The current 112th Congress—characterized by Tea Party congressmen elected two years ago—is the least productive since the 1940s. It makes Harry Truman’s infamous “Do-Nothing Congress” look like a paragon of speed and efficiency.
The problem of course is that polarization—the decline of competitive swing districts due to the rigged system of redistricting—has made most Republican congressmen terrified of being primaried from the right for being too reasonable.
This problem has been compounded by the rise of partisan media, which has dumbed down civic discourse into an angry, idiotic us-against-them exercise. The result is congressional division and dysfunction. Congratulations.
As someone who worked in the news media and who originally wanted to be in radio and talk radio when he was in college, I’ve closely followed the growth of the partisan media and I consider it a toxic development in American political history because it made it fashionable to brand compromise as caving or weakness, and consensus as a betrayal of ideological tenets. And it has all taken place within the context of politics becoming like professional wrestling was during the 50s and 60s. Bombast and posturing by its high profile media types. And it has also made our politics more than ever like sports: it’s not about solving problems or implementing substantive policies. It’s all about winning or preventing the other side from scoring so you can eventually win. MORE:
But direct culpability in creating the conditions for this crisis hasn’t stopped the professional partisan activist class from arguing that at this pivotal moment, members of Congress should do nothing and just go over the cliff.
And why not?
How many of those urging the United States to go over the cliff are people in need?
For instance, it’s always interesting to hear talk show hosts who have big, fat salaries and benefits diss poorer Americans or and suggest they should just get jobs.
True, why can’t those poorer Americans get jobs demonizing an opposing party for two or three hours day on TV or on the radio so they can make big, fat salaries, too? What’s wrong with those people?
How many independent voters how cringe when they talk to friends, relatives, or read new media pundits who seem to be vomiting up the talking points mouthed by their favorite talk show host or their favorite unbashed partisan website? The partisans media has served an important, positive role in modern American media and politics: it has gotten people engaged, and serves as rallying point for like-minded Americans. But it has also made reaffirmation of existing beliefs more important than the consideration of other viewpoints. MORE:
FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity have been emailing their supporters to tell them to pressure their congressman not to vote for any tax increases. That might sound impressively principled, until you realize that its really an insult to their supporters’ intelligence—because all taxes will be raised automatically, unless congress votes to keep taxes low on 98 percent of Americans, as our supposedly socialist president has repeatedly proposed.
On the left, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is also arguing for no compromise, with its cofounder Adam Green emailing supporters: “Democrats need to continue a bright line position: Raise tax rates on those making $250,000 at least to the Clinton rates and no cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits. Period.” This also ends up being an argument for going over the cliff, because it dooms any hope of even a modest deal as a good-faith basis for future action on the deficit and debt.
Attention John Avlon: any moment you’re going to hear from the “False Equivalency Police” who go haywire if anyone points out that their side is not pristine. Any moment they’ll be knocking on your door.
Avlon ends with this:
This is self-government committing economic suicide, putting ideological absolutism ahead of solving problems. The idea of a productive lame-duck session after the contentious election has been erased. Hopefully, Senators Reid and McConnell will surprise us with some kind of patchwork compromise by the self-imposed deadline of 3 p.m. today, but they have been keeping rumors of progress to themselves.
Beyond the looming fiscal abyss, senators have been busy passing a flurry of last-minute legislation that can be categorized as the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. They finally agreed to not be complete grinches and pass a Hurricane Sandy relief bill, but it seems far from assured from passage in the House. By a lopsided vote of 73 to 23, the Senate also extended Bush-era warrantless wiretapping until 2017; civil libertarians screamed, but not loud enough. And thanks to an executive order by President Obama, members of Congress will see a modest pay raise in the new year. You know, as a reward for all their good work over the past two years.
This congressional Kabuki is killing us, because it masks a more fundamental problem. Congress seems unable to act unless confronted with a crisis at the last minute—and even then, they can’t agree on anything significant or substantive that actually deals with long-term problems. Maybe they should just stay on vacation and spare us the rhetoric. But as the clock ticks to New Year’s, they should have a guilty conscience that might inspire a genuine resolution to reform. Because they created this crisis and now seem unable to fix it. We’re the ones who will feel the pain. It is an epic act of self-sabotage.
Your tax dollars — and political culture — at work..
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.