If you'd asked me 25 years ago, back in the Reagan Era, what the world today would be like, I would have never guessed that it would involve J.R.R. McCain, a place filled with tea-party Hobbits and an impending default on the world's largest economy. Even ten years ago the idea was unthinkable, yet today the US Government is one day away from reaching its debt limit.
Unless the US Congress can overcome the partisanship that dominates Washington and reach a deal to increase the debt ceiling, the US faces the increasing probability it will default. It won't be just the fault of the Hobbit, either. The blame can be spread to almost an entire generation of Americans better known as the Baby Boomers. Other generations may have contributed to the fight, but the origin of the debt crisis dates back to the 1960s.
Even calling it a debt crisis is a misnomer. The current Congressional battle is not about debt. It's not about taxes. It's not about doing what's right for the US or the world economy. It's about the ongoing ideological battle the Boomers (born 1943 to 1960) have been fighting amongst themselves since the Vietnam War, and neither side of this generation — the most affluent generation in modern history — will even consider the possibility that they could be wrong.
Polarisation
Why pick on the Boomers? Because they currently dominate both the House and the Senate, with a total of 314 members, more than every other generation combined. I've noticed that for many non-Americans, the polarisation of this generation is easy to see but hard to understand. It's been built up by years of national animosity stemming from events that have been focal points from the Boomer generation, such as the Vietnam War, Kent State, Watergate, Iran-Contra, the Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas nominations, the Clinton impeachment, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The brief lulls in the battle have been filled with debates about guns and capital punishment.
Both sides have been further whipped into a frenzy by pundits such as Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter or Keith Olbermann. Both sides have lost sight of what's best for the country. They only want what's best for their half of it.
The most recent manifestation of obsession with shouting down the opposition is the Tea Party, although it didn't start out that way. When the movement began in 2009, there were signs of bi-partisanship and even intelligence involved. Times were hard, austerity seemed a necessary step, and government spending has always been an easy target. But the movement also acted as a rally call to the more conservative — and unyielding — elements in the Republican Party. What started out as an attempt to promote sound financial policy turned into another right-wing-led, anti-Democrat crusade.
The ideas coming from the Tea Party are simple. They don't want to pay taxes, and since the government is the entity levying taxes, it is evil and it must be stopped. They are unconcerned about the consequences to the world markets or the US's standing abroad. The only goal, as Senate Minority Leader Eric Cantor has said, is to show the White House's policies are wrong.
This hatred of government has also led to policy statements that cross the border of absurd and head straight into Crazy Town. John Boehner, Speaker of the House and a fountain of anti-tax rhetoric, said that a government should be run like a business. However, Boehner's party, despite decades of campaigning against business regulations, insisted on a constitutional amendment that required a balanced budget. They even insisted on the amendment knowing that such a bill would be killed by the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The vociferous nature of the Tea Party has also placed more moderate Republicans between a rock and a hard place. The Republican Party is not anathema to compromise — even Reagan raised taxes when the situation required it — but now the Tea Party has elevated compromise to a level on a par with treason. This has led to many Republicans throwing in the towels on rational political dialogue. They are more scared of a Tea Party revolt during the upcoming elections than a renewed recession. The blame for that they can try to pass on to Obama,
This impasse is what is fuelling the current battle in Washington. With each party dominating half of Congress, their goal of finding common ground and a way to move the country forward has been lost. When President Obama asked Congress to show the world the US has an AAA government to match its credit rating, he was ignoring the political history of the last 40 years. The only way for US credit rating to match the government rating, is if they ever approach junk status.
Hopefully, that still seems impossible, but judging from recent events, impossible doesn't mean what we think it does. I would love to believe that it was impossible that a generation's insistence on rehashing the battles of the 1960s would never bring about a new global financial crisis, but what other reason is there for the richest nation on earth not being able to pay its bills after August 2? Tomorrow, we will find out just what really is impossible, one way or another.
