I promised myself to stay away from the debt ceiling. And I almost made it. But last night's twin speeches pushed me over the edge.
I know I'm gonna get in trouble today, but I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore.
As someone who cut his political teeth watching Ronald Reagan work with Speaker Tip O'Neill back in the day, I really miss the days of compromise and cooperation. This era of hyper political partisanship, is equally frustrating and depressing.
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(And I know I'll get the obligatory, "Keep your politics to yourself because this has nothing to do with employee benefits" e-mail before lunch today, but I'd argue this has everything to do with whether we pull out of this economic funk for real or whether continue to wallow in this half-hearted recovery.)
Two things jumped out at me last night. One, the president has clearly lost his mojo. He clearly made a move toward his 2008 campaign form, but stumbled. His move back to the middle seemed forced, and he's betrayed the left enough that he's lost their blind trust. And he can never make the right happy.
Which is part of the problem. By all accounts, the spending cuts to revenue increase ratio is now hovering around three-to-one. The president has given in so much that I swear he's been roofied.
And still the Republicans won't take yes for an answer. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. They've wrangled nearly every concession they could out of the president and still keep storming out of meetings like spoiled kids. Hard-line ideology has replaced real-world pragmatism and in a matter of weeks has turned public sentiment against Republicans who, not that long ago, were seen as the rational ones.
The worst part about this whole debate – and default – is that we have a historic opportunity here to change things for the better, but our representatives in Washington would rather squabble over ideas than actually do something to make our lives better.
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