Recommended: The Two Moons

David Brooks once again has an incisive piece in the New York Times: The Two Moons. He argues that we are now in a phase when neither major party is in the majority, and both are locked into an inward-turning cycle of trying to "stay ideologically pure". It is an interesting concept, and is persuasive.

We are coming up to an election with an incumbent Democratic president who, while personally likable, is clearly not up to the job, and a number of Republican opponents none of whom seem likely to be any better at the job. Democrats are simply unwilling or unable face reality about the huge deficits our entitlement programs are producing, and Republicans are lost in a right-wing never-never land.

Our choice in the upcoming election seems to be between:

(a) an incumbent who hasn't succeeded at any of the major tasks he promised to undertake -- changing Washington's political culture, closing Guantanamo, resetting the relationship with Russia, restoring the economy, reducing unemployment, resetting the relationship with the Muslim world, getting us out of Iraq (well, we will get out of Iraq now that the Iraq government has kicked us out, but he wanted to stay) and Afghanistan, reducing the size of the massive "black" intelligence world, etc. etc.

What he has done in his first three years in office is lumber us with a hugely expensive (CBO etimated appx $1 trillion) new health care bill, Spend about $1 trillion to save Wall Street firms and the bonuses of their CEOs, and to save the jobs of auto unions and public sector unions, increase the size of the federal payroll by 7.7% (from his Jan 2009 inauguration) despite a recession (see chart below),

and increase the federal debt by about $4.5 trillion (The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. Three years later it has just passed $15 trillion).

or (b) one of a series of pigmy Republican challengers who either don't accept the overwhelming scientific consensus on evolution and/or global warming (Gingrich, Perry, Cain, Ron Paul, Romney), or thinks God talks to them and told them to run (Perry), or is in favor of torture (Cain, Bachmann), or can't keep their Middle East nations straight (Cain). And none of whom has proposed a viable plan for reducing the federal debt, reducing unemployment, making America more competitive in the world market, fixing our education problems, solving our energy dependence on the Middle East, solving the entitlement problem, or any of the other major issues facing the nation.

A dismal choice!