This morning my Metro ride to work was made more unpleasant than usual by the fact that I was forced to contend not only with a bunch of tired sweaty people trying to avoid eye contact, but also the seriously depressing article on the front page of my newspaper discussing the deficit negotiations that had fallen apart over the weekend.
It would not be strictly correct to say that I was surprised by this news. In fact it would be strictly incorrect, since I heard about it on Saturday night right after it happened. But seeing the headline in my morning paper, (coupled with the fact that one of the suggested related articles at the bottom of the column was about Greece’s slow, debt-driven descent into madness) certainly did not brighten my day.
I am not going to pretend to understand the deficit crisis in any complete way. It would be an insult to everyone’s intelligence if I said I knew how we had ended up here. I don’t understand numbers, and that much can be verified by any of the upstanding educators who tried to teach me math before I gave it up two years ago. I do, however, understand that if the United States defaults on its loans, it will be very bad news for all of us – especially those of us entering the work force in ten months.
I also understand what every other person who has ever lived on a budget understands – that the only way to get out of debt is to increase revenue and decrease spending. And now that my job requires me to pay very close attention to the inner workings of Congress, I know that absolutely nothing will get done on the Hill this summer until a deficit agreement is reached. Not a transportation funding bill. Not the repeal of Obamacare that Republicans promised in their campaigns. Nothing. And we all know how much I hate it when Congress does nothing.
As I said before, my biggest problem with the breakdown in communication between the Republicans and the Administration isn’t that they are holding up important business. It is as if these people are no longer even pretending to live in the real world.
For example, when real people are in serious arguments, they don’t refuse to compromise or walk away from the table. Maybe they yell at each other, maybe everyone is a little irrational. Maybe things get broken. But they sit down and talk it out and figure out how to pay the bills, because that is what adults do.
Boehner and Obama have become so caught up in the game of politics that they have forgotten that out of the 300 million people who live in the United States, almost none of whom care about the political game or who loses face in this contest. The conversations most people are having don’t center on who gains ground in the imaginary political war. They involve people looking at each other, somewhat panicked, saying “they can’t default, right? They know better than that, right?”
I think it is unlikely that the government will default, but the fact that even we have to ask says more about the situation than anything else. I stood on the Mall three years ago and listened to Barack Obama’s inauguration speech. I remember thinking every sentence he spoke was inspired, but now all I remember is one line, quoted from the Bible (which really annoyed me at the time – I mean, come on. The Bible in a political speech?) “It’s time to put away childish things.” It was a pretty direct dig at the Bush administration, but now I would give anything to quote it back to Obama.
He and the Congressional Ship of Fools are headed off a cliff with the global economy in hand, and they are playing games on the way down. It is time for the leaders in this country to stop acting like children and act more like reasonable adults. Or even college students, because really, anyone who can buy as much food and booze as we do and still have money in the bank deserves some credit.
More specifically, national politicians are middle-school girls whose superficial diplomacy masks petty psychological warfare that can rot entire identities. The Capitol should be inscribed with, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”