Deja Vu All Over Again

I suppose it had been too long since I first got on my soap box about government politics. Some people tired of it. They had it good; things were going well; why disturb the process? Apparently I was harping on an old saw of social responsibility that many felt was unnecessary, redundant, and, well, expensive as hell.

Now, the buzzards have come home to roost. It’s high time we paid for our economic excesses. All the bills have come due and we’re broke. What did you think was going to happen?

It didn’t take long to realize where we were going when George Bush Sr. was in office. He was off performing dazzling feats of foreign policy when our economy got into trouble. There were many of us working stiffs out in the real world who saw sales drop in every business sector across the board, saw the auto industry get into real trouble due to arrogance and inflexibility, saw many of our jobs threatened and then disappear altogether. In a collective voice we were telling him, “Uh, George, we’re in trouble and need a little help here.” But old George wasn’t listening and we fired him at the next election…so much for a lame-duck one-term president.

Eventually the economy righted itself and after the first year Clinton was in office, it was going gangbusters. As far as I was concerned, his charisma and charm really helped, even if his personal conduct was highly suspect (and by the way, who the hell really cared except Newt Gingrich? Everyday I thought his head was going to explode). At the same time, we had some real problems, which Bill and Hillary tried to address. Their health initiative was totally shot down by the Republican Congress who said “Let the free market determine who gets health insurance and how much it costs.” Not the message we wanted to hear, but what the hell could we do about it at the time?

True to their philosophy, the Republicans didn’t want to spend government money on social welfare, but were more than willing to part with billions propping up corporate interests…after all that’s what made the economy go around. But Republicans are, in my view, genetically short-sighted, bound as they are to feverish concern about the next quarterly profit, and to hell with the future down the road. They’re ecstatic about deficit spending because their mantra is “See? No new taxes!” and this technically qualifies…no matter that the entire country’s future gets mortgaged up the ass.

Not that Democrats don’t have their own problems. It’s just the opposite with them. You can count on new taxes during a Democratic administration. That’s a promise. But at least my tax money is generally going somewhere closer to home…somewhere I have a chance of agreeing with. The caveat with Democrats is, once they start spending tax money on a new social program, the program never ends. You can count on it. (See Social Security, which I currently thank heaven for.)

The election has come and gone. The American people have spoken…for “change”. I’m not sure what this means, except to say that, every time one of the political parties gets voted out it’s because the American people want “change”. Well, we’ve got it now, for better or for worse. Some of it we’re going to love, some of it we’re going to hate. We’re going to be ecstatic and joyful, whining and crying, often all at the same time. Stay tuned, but be prepared, and wear your armored underwear.