It would be easy under the current circumstances to assume
that all the members of Congress, as well as the President and his advisers,
are just plain stupid. But in fact few
if any are stupid – while one does not have be exceptionally bright or
well-educated to get elected, it does take a certain minimum level of competence
to run a successful campaign for federal office. So the answer to why Congress and the administration
appear to be acting so stupidly must lie elsewhere.
In fact, members of Congress are for the most part acting
quite rationally from their own point of view. Tea Party members are doing just what they
were elected to do by the voters who put them into office – trying to curb the excessive
government spending (ignore the side issue about defunding ObamaCare). Liberals
are doing just what they were elected to do by the voters who put them into office
– protect popular entitlements and union jobs.
Because of extensive gerrymandering at the state level by
both parties, most members of Congress have safe seats (over 95% get reelected),
which means they only worry about primary challenges, which would come from
more left-leaning challengers in Democratic distracts, and more right-leaning challengers
in Republican districts. So of course
they are stubborn in these negotiations; if they weren’t they would risk being defeated
in their next primary.
Shorn of all the hyper-partisan rhetoric and largely irrelevant
side-issues, the nation’s fiscal problems really come down primarily to the growing
entitlement burden – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. As the baby
boomers retire and live longer, and as the ratio of workers to retirees drops,
these programs, as currently constituted, will over the next couple of decades
bankrupt the government, absorbing 100% plus of federal revenues. We can look
at the current Eurozone crisis to see exactly what happens when voters allow politicians
continue to buy votes with expensive social welfare and pension programs that
they can’t pay for.
What we as a nation have yet to have is a reasoned national
debate about just how much entitlement and social safety network spending we
are willing to finance with our taxes. It’s great to give our seniors generous
social security and health benefits (I enjoy them), but are young workers
willing to pay the taxes needed to support them, especially as the ratio of
retired to working people drops over the coming decades? And if we tax corporations and young workers enough
to pay for them will we simply drive businesses out of the country to more
favorable tax regimes, making the funding problem even worse?
The reason Congress is at loggerheads at the moment is
because we as voters have never had a rational debate about these issues – voters
on both sides are still living in fantasyland, liberals ignoring the rising
costs of their cherished entitlement programs and conservatives ignoring the
real need for social safety networks in a modern economy. Until we voters come to terms with reality,
the representatives we elect will continue to reflect our own unrealistic views
of the world.
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