Culture War until the Dollar Burns

Just a warning that the battle over the government shutdown that started Oct. 1 — and the much more serious U.S. insolvency that will happen after Oct. 17 — isn’t a fight between Republicans and Democrats. Neither is it a battle between good and evil.

In the six-week fight between Republicans and Democrats over raising the debt limit that is now to be postponed for six more weeks rather than resolved, the order of battle is much more complicated. For one thing, the Republicans are internally riven between the moderate faction around Speaker John Boehner and the 40 or so representatives riding his train with tea party tickets. They fear losing their seats to tea party loyalist candidates in their districts if they make any compromises with the loathsome Barack Obama.

To these representatives, a mandatory health insurance system for all represents the very gates to the hell of socialism and they preach that raising the debt limit will also increase U.S. indebtedness. In actual fact, raising the debt limit will only enable the United States to pay the bills owed to retirees, government employees and foreign creditors that Congress has already run up in the past. These tea party politicians are putting their own egotistical interests ahead of what’s best for their country.

Republican Foolishness

Additionally, there are fundamental battle lines between Democrats and Republicans and the reader is hereby warned against drawing premature conclusions that one or the other side is totally right and the other totally wrong. The request to make this distinction is directed least at Barack Obama’s health care reforms. The Republican demand that the price for their approving a budget and reopening the government was contingent on postponing his reforms for at least one year was absurd.

The decisions had already been made here a long time ago. The Senate and House had passed the mammoth bill in 2010, President Obama had signed it into law and in 2012 the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the “Affordable Care Act.” Then Obama was elected to a second term in the same year he had made his reform the centerpiece of his re-election campaign. In a democracy, the losing side is bound to accept such a process. The fact that Republicans achieved a majority in the House the same year that the health care law was enacted and that the Supreme Court’s decision was in Obama’s favor by just a slim margin doesn’t change anything.

One need only imagine a scenario where a future Republican president with one congressional chamber in the hands of the Democrats was faced with a threat that they would only agree to a debt ceiling increase provided the president passed stricter gun control laws.

Democratic Stubbornness

Nonetheless, Obama and his Democrats deserve criticism for not paying enough attention to the budget deficit which is still huge and growing. The president points to the fact that the deficit has never been shrinking as fast as it is now, namely from $1.1 trillion in 2012 to a projected $759 billion in 2013.

But there have been more impressive reductions in new debt, for example in 1945 through 1946 when it went from $47.6 billion to $15.9 billion, a third of what it was the previous year. Those were extraordinary circumstances, but those happen all the time in politics.

Still, the disparity between government income and government expenditures is still too high. In order to slow the deficit increase over the mid-term and someday reduce the total deficit from the current $16.7 trillion, there will have to be drastic cuts, especially in social spending. The United States pays more for retirement, health care, food stamps and housing assistance than does Germany, percentage-wise.

Bush Was No Better

But they spend their billions inefficiently. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security must therefore undergo not only moderate reforms; they must be rebuilt from the ground up. But the Democrats resist such demands and Obama himself shows little energy when it comes to taking on this thankless but absolutely necessary task.

However, the Republicans are dubious enforcers of a government crash diet. It was, after all, their President George W. Bush who carelessly took the budget surpluses he inherited from Bill Clinton and spent them recklessly, thus beginning today’s deficits. They went up under Obama and, although he argues that in view of the financial and economic crises global he inherited he had to introduce massive stimulus packages, by the fifth year of his administration that excuse is wearing a bit thin.

One additional point also makes the posture affected by the GOP as the great renovators of the country doubtful: The sheer size of the deficit can no longer be dealt with via spending cuts alone. Moderate revenue increases cannot be avoided and in a nation where the chasm between the super-rich and the middle class is so great, they will have to come from the upper end of the income scale.

Like a Television Series

But the Republicans refuse to engage in any meaningful debate over tax hikes; their opposition to any cuts in defense spending makes one wonder whether they really want policies for the entire nation or just for their own clientèle.

Even a compromise that temporarily raises the debt limit would just be a cliff hanger like those seen in a bad television series. The next crisis, complete with mutual recriminations and further uncertainty in the international marketplace is already on the horizon. Democrats and Republicans aren’t really fighting about the budget, they are waging a cultural war. We can expect to see a return to constructive politics when the old checks and balances system is restored and that won’t come about until 2016.