Raising the Roof – 3

I’m tired of the Debt Ceiling debate, mainly because I don’t think anything meaningful will come out of it.  A recent poll showed that 69% of Americans don’t want the Debt Ceiling raised, but prefer that the Feds learn to live within their means.  However, in Washington DC, the default attitude is inevitability.  The ceiling will be raised; the only question is how high and will there be any spending cuts to begin fixing the problem?

President Obama says there needs to be compromise, and I’ll take him at his word.  The problem is, the two sides are so far apart, any compromise will enrage their respective bases.

America is deeply divided about the purpose of the Federal Government.  On the one hand, many of those who voted for Obama believe, as he does, that government is the answer and is best suited to provide most services and even some products needed by the citizenry.  They have no concept of a government being too big, because they see government as the source of their sustenance; the bigger the better.  Many of those people pay no income taxes, due to decades of politicians pandering and promising to “tax the rich”.  Almost 50% of Americans pay no income tax at all.  No wonder they have no interest in tax cuts.

On the other hand, those of a conservative-to-libertarian bent, often the same people paying the taxes, are often fiercely independent and wouldn’t stoop to ask the government for assistance.  It would be too humiliating.  But they have seen their taxes go up as politicians spend the money on ever crazier vote-buying schemes to help themselves get reelected.  The money goes to everything from countries that hate us to profane artists to people who have broken into our country to steal jobs and tax-payer funded government services.

How can there be compromise between these poles?

Will we go on down the road, with demagoguery as our background music?  Then, when we reach the cliff we’ll go on over, because no one had the courage to apply the brakes?  Will we dissolve into chaos like Greece because no one had the courage to tell people that the government is not their mama?

We have forgotten long ago that the intention of the founders was that the Federal Government would never make direct monetary payments to individual American citizens.  (You might have to reread the previous sentence because it seems like it’s from another planet today.)