Over We Go

From what I hear on TV, we seem destined to go over the so-called fiscal cliff on Monday.  While the immediate impact looks fairly modest, especially if a deal is reached soon after the first of the year, I suspect the longer term impact will be more serious.  Going over the cliff will make it clear that our government no longer works.

Since childhood I've been told that the essence of democratic government is compromise.  Generations of politicians spoke in public for the benefit of the folks at home, and then went offstage, into smoke-filled rooms, to cut deals.  It was this deal-making that allowed government to do whatever government had to do at the time.  Both sides got part of the loaf; with rare exceptions, neither side got everything they wanted.  That ability to compromise was the essence of good politics.

Cliff House — a great structure hovering
on the edge.  (U.S. Public Domain)

Now the kind of purity long associated with religion has made the leap from church to Congress, like a deadly flu virus leaping from birds or pigs to humans.  I see this most clearly in the conservative, Tea Party Congressfolk who are as committed to not raising taxes as some Christians are committed to the historicity of the Virgin Birth.  This aversion to taxes is a pseudo-theological notion, not (as they claim) a bedrock democratic value.  It takes something no one likes to do — pay taxes — and elevates it to the status of "from God's lips."  To defend this notion so vigorously as to cause the U.S. to default on its obligations or to sabotage our struggling economy is grossly irresponsible and (dare I say) un-American.

I hope people write their Congressfolk and Senators and demand prompt, responsible action. •••