December 14, 2010 03:24 AM UTC

Musings on "Compromise"

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• by: caroman

Our country is so screwed.

The GOP doesn’t like the unemployment extension and the Dems don’t like the wealthy tax cuts extension and the estate tax giveaway.   Conventional wisdom has now concluded that the compromise must be good since both the Dems and the GOP don’t like the deal.  This brilliant reasoning has come out of President Obama, Senate Dems, the GOP party, and numerous pundits.  (The latest pundit being the normally sober Ron Insana who’s a financial reporter for MSNBC.)

Horse-pucky!!

As usual, it takes a family analogy to make sense of what’s really happening in Washington.

Consider that your spouse wants a new kitchen and you want a new big screen TV.  Neither of you wants the other thing, but in the interest of “compromise” you decide to get both!  Nobody’s really happy, so it must make sense!  Horse-pucky!!

A true compromise would be something that each had to give up, not let the other party get.  For example, say one spouse has to give up spa treatments and the other spouse gives up indoor tennis.  Now that would be a true compromise where both parties aren’t happy, but the result is better for the family’s finances.

The fact that politicians and the media can’t seem to understand this simple analysis means that we will never be able to control our finances.  Consider also that it was only in the 1960’s when the late Senator Everett Dirksen said, “A billion here, a billion there.  Pretty soon you’re talking real money.”  Only 50 years later and we’ve had to revise that quote a thousandfold to: “A trillion here, a trillion there.  Pretty soon you’re talking real money.”

Finally, we have lost the one time on the American political calendar, immediately following an election, to actually act responsibly.  No one can seriously think these tax cuts for the wealthy and the estate tax giveaway will be changed prior to the 2012 election.

This pains me even more since President Obama and Senator Bennet are my candidates.  Senator Bennet’s only laugh line on his stump speech came when he said his daughter told him in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t about to pay back the deficits we are leaving her.  I wonder what she’d say about these tax cuts now.

Our country is so screwed.