The Presidents of the 20th century and their handlers were big names: FDR, the granddaddy of big government gave us the New Deal, Harry Truman has the Fair Deal, JFK offered the New Frontier, LBJ’s definition of excessive government spending was the great society - after the political Frankenstein experiment known as the Carter Administration, Jimmy Carter. Ronald Reagan told us it was morning again in America. I’m not quite sure what Barack Obama’s minions have nicknamed the mess over which he’s, um, presiding but I’ll give it a shot how about the dysfunctional disappointment - that is what our government has become.
It hit me this morning as I scoured the internet. On one of the websites, an ad popped up inviting me to open a savings account with American Express, paying me a whopping 1% interest rate. When I was a kid I can remember my father driving a half an hour because a certain bank was offering something like 12%on a CD and threw in a toaster or a color TV depending on how much you invested. Today a first grader could compound the interest rates; it doesn’t pay us to save - in part because all the government does is spend - much of that involving money we as a nation don’t have. So we find ourselves on the first of October pondering who will lead us for the next 4 years. Do we want to return Barack Obama who hasn’t managed to get much of anything done or give the keys to the Mitt Romney who hasn’t quite articulated what he plans to do to turn things around?
If you believe the country’s in bad shape and you wonder how anyone would reward the guy in charge with another term, you might find the answer in the New York Times. One op ed columnist says it’s a matter of the national mindset changing. Gone are the days where we strived to get ahead. Now, we as a nation are satisfied with not falling behind so long as we have some kind of job, a smart phone, and reality TV and a government willing to pick up the tab when things do get tougher. Americans, like the economy, will just muddle along in the stagnant mode as Mitt Romney’s been learning. Stagnation and complacency are hard to run against in the land of entitlements.
The question now with Republicans sentenced to four years in leadership limbo - have the guts to swallow hard and push for the cuts that will be inconvenient, even painful for a while, but could finally move to get us off the untouchable entitlement, oblivious federal spending? Marathon sequester - it rhymes with fester, which is what a stagnant economy will continue to do unless congress takes some bold steps and with their own belts tightened, state legislators take a cue from Washington.
