Towards a Deal?

Reading the New York Times column by David Brooks on why Republicans should vote for the “plan” that House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama reportedly have developed casts a pall of depression  over any thinking person.

Reading the New York Times column by Paul Krugman on the impending global economic collapse merely worsens confusion.

Can both be right?  Cut spending: Brooks. Increase spending: Krugman. Failure to do either could lead to “The Great Depression, The Sequel.”

The juxtaposition of those columns reflects almost perfectly the confusion in Washington, D.C.

And the weather is just right in the nation’s Capitol for productive negotiations—100 degrees in the shade, 115 heat index, code red air quality.  A perfect metaphor.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yelled at Obama’s budget director, Jack Lew, after reports of the Boehner-Obama alleged agreement surfaced Thursday.  “Anger,” “fury,” “volcanic” characterized the Senate Democratic caucus meeting with Lew.  Harsh words for the President gushed out of Democrats in both the House and the Senate.

Meanwhile, a Republican Congressman called the President “a liar” on television.  Republicans in the House muttered about a leadership that “misled us” on the compromise Continuing Resolution for Appropriations for FY11 earlier in the year.  Freshman GOP Congressman Mike Kelly opined, “I think most of the people that I talk to, they feel the fall out (of a weak debt ceiling deal) would be:  People sent them here in November to do a job and they got spineless.”

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund issued its World Economic Outlook Update in mid-June. The update, which was obviously written by someone in an air-conditioned room, droned:  “The key fiscal priority for major advanced economies—especially the United States and Japan—is to implement credible and well-paced consolidation programs focused on bolstering medium-term debt sustainability.’

Yes, that’s the way these folks write.

Most of the “deals” dominating the media the last couple of days will probably fall flat.  Even if one passes, it will use both gimmicks and heavy-handed caps on appropriated accounts, the smallest part of America’s debt problem.  The real problems will remain ensconced firmly, growing as the Baby Boomers retire and health care costs accelerate accordingly.

Not one would begin to do what the IMF recommends (in English):  pass some bills right now that will begin to take effect  cut a couple of years from now with real legislative language—bills, signed into law by the President.  Don’t pound the economy right now, it’s too weak.  But pass the debt reform measures now to re-assure folks that you are serious about getting the debt under control before it spirals completely out of control.

This isn’t hard.  That’s what makes it hard.  Politicians normally want difficult, ambiguous problems that lend themselves to complicated, ambiguous answers that accommodate “trimming” and parsing of words.

The debt problem accommodates none of the traditional fence-straddling.  It’s a binary problem.  Are you going to do anything to show you are serious about cutting future debt or not?  If so, then do it now.  If not, then pass some cockamamie scheme that merely allows you to get the debt ceiling increased and avoid a completely avoidable economic disaster.

Two old sayings come to mind as this nonsense rolls on.

One is the famous Casey Stengel line, as he looked morosely into the old New York Mets dugout one summer:  “Can’t anybody in here play this game”?

The other is from “Conan the Barbarian.”  As Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his two companions on horseback look at the forces massed against them,  he urges them to fight the hordes with this great line:  “What, you thought you would live forever?”

Default of any kind on American obligations will answer  Casey’s question.  And the pols who tremble at doing the responsible thing will answer the second, Rep. Kelly’s remarks notwithstanding.