Failure to Perceive Reality

Before America's government can do anything to solve the current economic problems, it will be necessary for both parties to become realists. Fantasy worlds must be evacuated and the politicians will have to live and discuss the real world. Too often in recent years, we have seen arguments made that just plain ignore reality. Here are a few:

1) John Nichols, writing in The Nation, sets forth one of the pernicious myths now accepted by liberals with regard to the economy. Nichols writes, "Obama's failure to [announce that he would not compromise] with the original stimulus plan of 2009 robbed that initiative of the resources needed to provide a sufficient jumpstart to the economy." Think about that and try to remember 2009. Obama took office on January 20th and the stimulus was signed into law 24 days later on February 13th. There were no compromises put in place with Republicans to get the bill passed. No Republicans voted for the bill, but it passed comfortably in the House by 246 to 183 and in the Senate by 60 to 38. The idea that Obama took less to get the bill passed or that he compromised away any portion of it is just a myth. Indeed, it is a myth that was created in order to explain why this massive, 800 billion dollar expenditure did not work. Rather than accepting reality, the progressives just decide that the fault was that the bill did not do enough. And then they blame the GOP for forcing a compromise that never existed. This thought process prevents liberals from looking for ideas that actually might work rather than insisting on using the failed playbook but doing it in a bigger way.

2)Michelle Bachmann is still out on the campaign trail telling Americans that she would never have agreed to raising the debt ceiling if she were president. This argument alone should disqualify her from the office. It is true that there was sufficient money coming in to the Treasury to pay the salaries of troops, social security and interest on the debt. Even Medicare could have been funded, but that would have left enough to pay for no more than 10% of the remaining federal expenditures. In other words, FEMA that is now helping the victims of hurricane Irene would be penniless. The Air Traffic controllers would have to be fired. Food inspections from the FDA would have to stop. The National Parks would be closed. The border guards would be gone. The FBI could no longer look for the bad guys. The IRS would shut down. (OK that last one sounds good at first, but then it causes bigger problems.) I will not go through all of the federal programs that get killed in Bachmann's world; you get the picture. The truth is that there is plenty of waste in the federal government. It would not be hard to cut 10% of all expenditures if the political will to get rid of waste and unproductive programs were there. The shortfall in funding is 40%, however. That means that the 30% of the budget that cannot be reduced without doing real harm just disappears in Bachmann's world. Again, it is hard to imagine coming to real solutions so long as there are those like Bachmann who cannot recognize reality.

3) Speeches do not change facts. Unfortunately, the president and his staff have yet to grasp this truth. Obama still thinks that if he gives a speech on jobs rather than presenting a detailed plan, it will do just as well. Think back to the debt ceiling debate. The country went through months and months of debate and negotiations, yet Obama never once proposed an actual plan. Even the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, when asked about the effect of what Obama wanted, just said that it did not and could not score speeches. As the night for Obama's jobs speech (or at least the first part of it) approaches, someone needs to tell Obama that he ought to put forth an actual plan that the people and Congress can review. Otherwise, we go back to John Boehner's description of dealing with the White House. Boehner said it was like negotiating with a bowl of jello. It will not be possible to come to any rapid resolution of this debate if the president and his party does not have their own detailed plan. Unless Obama's goal is not to help the country but just to try to avoid blame for the problems, he has to produce a detailed plan.

There are other examples, but these tell the story. Not all of Washington is living in dreamland, but there are enough caught in that deluded state that we are all in trouble. Maybe we should all just start shouting and hope they wake up.

WAKE UP!!!
WAKE UP!!!
WAKE UP!!!