Wednesday, January 2, 2013

New Year, Same Stuff

I’m still on break until Monday, so I woke up to Joe Scarborough still being a big-mouthed jerk.

Glad to see that some things never change.

As to the recent unpleasantness in Congress, Charlie Pierce nails it.

It was truly a remarkable spectacle to watch so many congresscritters from both sides of the aisle congratulate themselves for coming to the end of the drama without impaling the entire economy on a spike and leaving it for the daws to peck at. The gorge didn’t exactly reach high tide until David Dreier, a Republican from California who is leaving Congress to get rich, got up and said how it was Congress’s job “to restore hope and optimism to the American people.” Yes, this is the same David Dreier who helped waste a year of the country’s time chasing Bill Clinton’s penis around the Beltway. “We must always be prepared to compromise in the service of our principles,” he said, saying absolutely nothing. He later pointed out that he “was taking the Madisonian directive” and returning to California, where I am sure he will become a gentleman farmer and absolutely have nothing to do with lobbying his former colleagues, and I am also the Tsar of all the Russias. In the name of god, go!

Steny Hoyer, on the other hand, regretted that “this is not a big, bold, balanced plan.” I don’t. I don’t trust either side to develop a big, bold, balanced plan that doesn’t pretty much hose most of the country because, in too many cases, their constituencies are no longer most of the people in the country. (How many times have you heard the current deal praised because The Markets were happy and how many times have you heard it praised because it extended unemployment benefits for a niggling 12 months? Thought so.) After a while, I found myself grateful for the Republicans who were holding out against their leadership, because at least their honest contempt for the obligations of governing the nation, and their honest hatred of the Democrats, and their honest loathing for the concept of a political commonwealth, and their resolute insistence on ignoring the election of last November had a simple clarity to it. (I heard Ed Royce talk about how they’d kept off all of us the onerous chains of The Death Tax. The Death Tax! It was like hearing “Free Bird” on your classic rock station.) Sander Levin called bullshit on all of that, and that was good to hear, too, because otherwise, it was like hearing a bunch of guys playing “Kumbaya” on their switchblades.

And the hits just keep on coming….

4 barks and woofs on “New Year, Same Stuff

  1. Given the proclivities of the Teahad, I too am glad that it wasn’t the “big, bold… plan” that Hoyer wanted. The alternative would have been big and bold, certainly – but would have shredded the federal budget far more thoroughly than the sequester would have done.

    It helps to remember that, however destructive the GOTea’s proposals have been, their scope and vision were clear, and their reach substantial. “Big and bold” can apply to either side – and the results of the two positions aren’t in the least comparable.

    Truth be told (praise Krugthulu), if Hoyer was looking for “big and bold,” then “balanced” wouldn’t have a thing to do with it: unemployment is still hovering around 8%, demand is still weak, consumer confidence is still low, and Wall St. still hasn’t been taken to task for treating their clients’ funds like Le Chiffre’s Skyfleet shorts.

  2. And they act so proud of fixing what they never should have f**ked up in the first place. Even a kindergartner could do better. Charlie Pierce’s rants are so invigorating…good reading to start the day.

  3. We still need a big stimulus, by which I mean at the minimum a trillion or so dollars in infrastructure spending. I’m afraid that’s about as likely right now as me waking up tomorrow looking like George Clooney.

    • I think it’s about as likely right now as you (or any of us for that matter) waking up tomorrow looking at George Clooney.

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