Adaptive Curmudgeon

When you see a sign that says “wet paint” you have an urge to touch it. Don’t try to disagree; you know I’m telling the truth. When I was a kid the gravitational pull of a wet paint sign was irresistible. Inevitably I’d wind up with a painted finger which I’d wipe on my jeans. (You did the same thing when you were a kid.)  My mother would ask why I was dumb enough to mess up perfectly good school clothes. I had no answer. Children are like that.  Some folks stay that way into adulthood.

Why am I telling you this? The president has provided a “wet paint” sign that might best be ignored. Obama is getting his ass kicked by something he’s never had to face before…reality. The best of his dwindling options involve diversion. If the opposing party craps itself he might deflect some of the criticism he’s earning. I implore Republicans (and Tea Partiers) and even serious minded Democrats to leave the bait alone.

Consider what’s happening in the real world:

Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya are imploding. Middle eastern revolution is passing around like lice in an elementary school. By the time I post this who knows how far it will have gone? Maybe it’s good news and maybe it’s bad but it is definitely a historic moment that will define millions of lives for the next several decades. Wow! Meanwhile Obama is a deer in headlights. It might be wise to keep out of a quagmire but Obama hasn’t decided to not participate any more than he has decided to do something.  The absence of decision is an absence of leadership.  Presidents, even when the shit hits the fan, should maintain the pretense of a firm hand on the tiller.

Domestically his Obamaness submitted a budget that did what every Federal budget does; ignore things and let the debt continue. Whistling past the debt graveyard is standard protocol but it’s no longer popular. You may have noticed the election a few months ago? Obama didn’t. Speeches about “Sputnik moments” and other irrelevancies belong to 2009 (actually Sputnik belongs to 1957).  Fiscal responsibility (or at least the appearance of it) is starting to make sense to even the most deliberately inattentive.  Ignoring fiscal reality in 2011 means the bus is leaving without you.

Then came the kerfluffle in Wisconsin. Our brave Commander In Chief personally interfered with a freshly elected State Executive who is doing precisely what he campaigned to do in the State where he won.  I call bullshit!  The Federal President has no business forcing a State Governor in the expressly non-Federal (and rather mundane) issue of…teacher’s pay! We’re in debt for $14,182,941,035,367, at war on two fronts, and revolutions are jumping from nation to nation in the Middle East.  In this environment Obama springs into action over collective negotiations for third grade English teachers in Green Bay. This is what happens when a community organizer is in over his head.

With Democrats fleeing Wisconsin and Obama fleeing reality, Republicans could rise to the occasion, govern wisely, and look good by comparison. Actually Republicans could shine by merely staying sober and keeping their pants on.

Read that last sentence; Republicans need do nothing but avoid self mutilation. Can they do it? I have my doubts. Given the opportunity to do something stupid, Republicans have been known to seize the day.

Obama, who is not a fool, knows it too.  Since the real world sucks he’s cleverly created a false one more to his liking.  He looked around for an unpopular law.  He found the Defense Of Marriage Act of 1996.  A wedge issue the Republicans left cocked and loaded and lying around 15 years ago.  Smooth move gentlemen.  The president has chosen to stop legally defending it. Why now? In this moment over all others?  Because reality sucks; we’re at war on two fronts, the Middle East is imploding, we’re broke, his budget is laughable, the government is running on a continuing resolution, and even in his home territory of Madison Wisconsin he’s getting no traction. Obama has tried nothing and he’s all out of ideas. He needs the Republicans to implode.

Incidentally I’m not happy about either Defense of Marriage Act or it’s likely demise by bureaucracy. I don’t remember civics class covering the part where the Executive can pick and choose among duly passed laws. Nor do I like using the Supreme Court as the involuntary default garbage collector for laws which could be repealed or affirmed through an honest up or down legislative vote.  Managing laws the way the government was designed to function does have a sort of simplicity to it doesn’t it?

This game is bad news for Republicans and it’s not too pretty for Democrats either. The Defense of Marriage Act is a wet paint sign. Can Republican’s ignore it? Will they follow their usual Pavlovian response to all things gay and go into rut about a symbolic, largely irrelevant, non-issue?

Obama has put the bait out. Stay tuned to see if his opposition will play their role by sticking their genitals into the waiting metal jaws. Remember…it’s a 15 year old law of minor importance while Lybia is killing people with jets today and the Government is slated to shut down in a few weeks. They could just let it go. Wanna’ place bets?

The election was November 2nd and the swearing in was January 10th.  Elections have repercussions.  This one was a good solid ass kicking of incumbents so the onus was on the “new guys” to immediately start governing wisely.  From the new crop of elected politicians (largely Republicans) I demanded much yet expected little.  I set the bar low.  They entertained me with theatrics for a while…and then dove beneath the bar.

Let’s start with the fun stuff.  Reading the Constitution was priceless!  Humorless flakes like the New York Times flipped their lid over this essentially harmless activity:

“A theatrical production of unusual pomposity…

…particularly self-important flourish…

…ritual of self-glorification…

…it is a presumptuous and self-righteous act…

…air of vacuous fundamentalism…

The Republicans’ antics are a ghastly waste of time…”

Any time you can piss off the New York Times that much…you’re on a roll!  I expect neither the Evil Party nor the Stupid Party to go cold turkey and start governing in actual accordance with the constitution but at least the idea was floated.  It’s a start.

In fact, it was a good start.  It made me happy.  I’m weird that way.  I love having windbags forced to hear the constitution.  Senators and Congressmen swear to uphold it.  How can you be too busy to read what you swear to uphold?  Ideally elected officials would have to recite the whole thing aloud from memory and be deported to Botswana if they miss a single word.  The whole thing appealed to me; one of a dwindling number of Americans who are patriotic in a non-cynical way.  I have a flag on  my lawn.  I feel good when I hear the Star Spangled Banner.  I know it’s just a ceremony but it means something to me.  The New York Times needs to remember that not everyone is locked in a permanent teenage angst of nihilistic cynicism.

A New York Times reporter in disguise as a patriot among rednecks who cling to guns and religion.

Then came the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act”.  It had a childish name but did two things rarely accomplished in recent memory.

1. It was two pages long.  (Obamacare was so long I couldn’t find a clear page count but it’s a little over 2,000 pages.  The law has led to an uncertain but suggested 6,000 pages of regulations in the Federal Register.  Remember the craptacular phrase “pass it to know what’s in it”?)
2. It was posted on the Internet in its entirety for full review.  (I recall a certain candidate promising to do that and then going flat out for closed doors bills.)

It was voted on and passed the House to certain demise in the Senate.  Who cares…it made a point and I’m happy with it.

But now playtime is over.  It’s time to get with the program and actually govern.

In case you hadn’t noticed America is fiscally hosed.  Not surprisingly there’s a plan to do something about it.  It’s not perfect but both parties have tried nothing and are all out of ideas.  Time for games is over.  Get to work.

Then came D.C. Defense of Marriage Act.  I’m spectacularly unimpressed.  Bitching about gay marriage in a place with 0.19% of the population?  (Census 2009.) The party of limited government attempting to inflict Federal control over the only Americans who are specifically and uniquely NOT the 99.8% of the population that vote in elections?

That won’t do!  I am far more interested in the $14,126,934,869,854 debt than GOP posing about a theoretical 10% of the non-voting 0.19% of the population that are likely to do just fine without Federal control.

Republicans were elected in droves in 2010 because inventing magic rainbow money pissed off the masses.  Once the press was done dry humping his election speeches even the dimmest bulb realized that Obama can’t actually walk on water.  Republicans got an election served on a platter.  And they’re shitting on it.  I don’t care if every resident of D.C. reenacts Brokeback Mountain but I do care if a bunch of half wits turns my nation into a fiscally insolvent banana republic because the hard work of governing isn’t entertaining enough.

Get back on the rails right quick or us hicks in flyover country will have tar and feathers waiting by the next election cycle.  Honeymoon’s over.  Get to work on real issues or step out of the way to let real adults take the lead.

Denial is for pussies.  When things go to shit, man up and face it.  You’ll thank yourself in the end.  Pretending otherwise is for morons and politicians.  Which brings me to this article; U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don’t Even Know It.

“We have 78 million baby boomers who, when fully retired, will collect benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that, on average, exceed per-capita GDP. The annual costs of these entitlements will total about $4 trillion in today’s dollars. Yes, our economy will be bigger in 20 years, but not big enough to handle this size load year after year. This is what happens when you run a massive Ponzi scheme for six decades straight…”

He’s correct.  As a nation, we’re screwed.  So is Europe.

What I’m writing about is the idea of surprise.  I’d rewrite “U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don’t Even Know It” as “U.S. Is Bankrupt and You Already Knew That“.  The idea of “surprise” is a falsehood meant to assuage fragile Baby Boomer egos.

Social Security has been unsustainable for years.  I know it.  You know it.  My dog knows it.  If your dog doesn’t know it get a smarter dog.

Regardless of their public statements, every congressman, senator, and president for decades has known it too.  They knew it when they campaigned.  You knew it when you voted.

The only group that acts “surprised” by the Ponzi nature of Social Security (and other programs) is Baby Boomers.  Why?  Because pretending they paid for what they’re getting makes cashing that check feel better.  It’s easy to not understand something when you get a monthly check not to.  If you send me a big enough check I’ll pretend that the moon is made of green cheese and I like tofu.  Cashing checks of bad money isn’t that hard.  Baby Boomers did and will continue to do it in massive numbers.

Denial is unbecoming of the rest of us.  I’m younger than Baby Boomers.  In my age cohort we’ve known that every payment made to social security was charity to the elder generation.  I knew social security would fail me when Pac Man was new technology, when digital watches were cool, when televisions had dials, when the Space Shuttle was untested.  When my first paycheck at my first shitty minimum wage job had a Social Security deduction, I knew that money would not pay for my retirement.  To the degree that I am able, I have acted accordingly.  To do otherwise is unforgivably stupid.

When Baby Boomers complete their financial mayhem as they age; feigned surprise won’t help.  If you were good at denial or thought magic rainbow stimulus money would save you…stop it.  Right now.  Don’t endanger yourself for the convenience of a fiction.  Cover your financial ass and get ready for a wild ride as Boomers meet their first unavoidable limits; both on finances and on life itself.  It will be interesting.

Now here’s the “glass is half full” part.  Bad times push you toward but don’t guarantee personal disaster.  In every long drawn out slow motion financial decline some folks emerge OK.  Not everyone starved in the Great Depression.  Many rode it out intact and a few even thrived.  Endeavor to be one of them.

How?  It’s more than I can say in a short article and I’m not sure I know it all myself.  So you’re on your own.  Which of course is always true of all people at all times so you might as well roll with it.

A.C.

Hat Tip to Papa De Bravo who linked to the article several months ago.