Throw the bums out! Get them out of office. No more career politicians!
This mantra has grown stronger than ever in the United States.
The American People are fed up with Congress, which now polls at single
digit approval ratings. Zombies are more popular than Congress, along with the
e coli strain.
Yet how come there are so many bums in Washington in the first place?
The Government in Washington is a mere reflection of the current political
culture in our country. The voters can assess the current crop of outrageous
legislative caricatures all they please, yet sending another round of bums will
not end the bummer-bluster culture of frustration and exhaustion which defines
Congress today.
Why is nothing getting done in Washington, anyway?
Half the people are paying, and the other half are taking, essentially. Not
just welfare, but Social Security, Medicare, and Veterans benefits are trying
the national system of government funding. This system is not just
unsustainable, but endemic to the intractable dysfunction of Washington's
current, fractious politics. The Tea Party partisans entered office on the
unified mission to stop the spending spree in Washington, not just pay lip
service to those principles. Democrats are wedded to growing government,
including the welfare state, at the expense of national defense. Establishment
Republicans, those who recognize the need to compromise as well as those who
compromise out of need, have attempted a balancing act, with little results.
Is anyone surprised to see such a strained tug-of-war in our federal
capital?
Independent Voices have argued that non-competitive primaries have created
unyielding representatives in Washington. True, state legislatures still draw
up Congressional districts to protect incumbents and maintain one party's edge.
California's open primaries and Citizens Redistricting Commission, however, did
not undone the common political culture of "Vote me something for
nothing" still prevalent among Golden State voters.
A wake-call of a crisis levels may jolt American voters to change their
attitude about government, regardless of whom they send to office.
The fallout of “pay me now and charge me later” is already shaking up
cash-strapped European states.
Greece is the scene of daily riots, which can do nothing to amend the dismal
reality of economics: supply and demand depend on scarcity, and since scarcely
anyone is paying and everyone has been profiting, the state has nothing. Very
soon the rest of Europe must embrace that the welfare state of the Socialist
Sixties Revolution has become the Naught of the Naughts (the first decade of
the Twenty-first century). There is not enough money to take from one group to
spend on another.
Will France learn this lesson?
The French Socialist President Francois Hollande is enduring the lowest
approval ratings yet for his administration, and there are still five years
remaining in his first term. The head of the French labor unions has protested
Hollande's massive tax increases, fully aware that rich people help other
people get rich, investing their wealth in companies, which in turn employ more
people and increase consumer spending.
Still, let us not forget that the he French people elected a Socialist, yet
now they despise his policies.
Who then, sacre bleu, do they have to blame but themselves?
Besides the folies of the French, Is
there evidence that voters will make wise choices for leadership?
Great Britain’s voters seem to have learned, or at least their elected leaders
are leading on reforms. Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron demanded that
all disability recipients confirm their need, or get off the dole. The Royal
Mail Service faces privatization as a necessary cost-cutting measure. Cameron’s
cabinet is also exploring the end to automatic subsidies (like housing credits
to unemployed young adults). These welfare programs face substantial cuts, as
the United Kingdom’s leadership has unified around the stark realities that a government
without money cannot spend.
Of course, European states are running out of people to pay for the lavish
entitlements of those still living and breathing, yet presumably too old to
contribute anything, but let’s focus on what different national governments are
responding to these fiscal crises.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has responded responsibly to her people,
defined by thrift and industry, tired of the taxes under the prior liberal
Gerard Schroeder. Germans have channeled their frustration toward user-abuser
states like Greece, Italy and Spain, whose leaders granted onerous
benefits which their vastly diminished state coffers can no longer
honor.
Norway’s electorate installed their nation's first female conservative, Prime
Minister Erna Solberg, who campaigned on stronger national security, lower
taxes, and better access to healthcare through privatization. Australians
brought in the Liberal Party to end the Labour Party infighting and repeal the
hated Carbon tax.
These voters charge of their political culture, responding to prior contests
which championed tax-and-spend politicians, who are now running out of other
people to tax and other people's money to spend.
A vapid tantrum of Throw the bums out!
alone will not ensure better governance. Voters must not merely remove the
failing incumbents, but make sure to throw out the bum-like policies which
enable government preeminence and dependence at the expense of someone else.