THE REPUBLICANS DESERVE 2 OSCARS or THE CASE OF POLITICAL AND SOCIETAL SCHIZOPHRENIA ON THE RISE

Penny-wise is often pound-foolish ~ 17^th century English proverb



The Republicans deserve 2 special-category Oscars at tonight's Academy Awards show. One for patently false proselytizing (aka, acting) and the second for fully-erroneous (screen) writing. To some degree all politicians are impostors, but the Republicans' continuing charade qualifies them for this rare, double Oscar award. The Academy Awards would thus expose the Republicans for what they are, political and economic charlatans.

I had a breakthrough today. As you've seen if you've read my blog, I've been increasingly dismayed at the growing disconnect between economic reality (at least as I interpret it) and how others, especially those of a politically conservative nature see it (including those who now have the authority to change economic policy). Republicans are closet plutocrats. How can such a fundamental disconnect have occurred and can anything be done about it?

My insight is we are suffering from an oozing, collective case of schizophrenia. Not medical schizophrenia, but a percolating spread of economic and political schizophrenia. [The Mayo Clinic states schizophrenia is a group of severe brain disorders in which people interpret reality abnormally. And that Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions and disordered thinking and behavior.]

I think this diagnosis fits the Republican view of what is "reality" to a T. The Republicans' perception of reality is definitely "abnormal", "delusional", and "disordered" to say the least. They propose to fix our economic problems with policies that are either misguided, have failed in the past, or will cause significant future damage.

Republicans in Congress and state/local governments haven't gotten to this elevated state of schizophrenia (and plutocracy) without help. No, many others have assisted, including the much-ballyhooed "grass-roots" tea-partiers. The TP'ers are just as schizoid as their leaders. In spite of the tea-party's alleged "populist" aims, Republican economic policy has been laser-like in focusing on benefiting broad corporate interests and those of the top one to two percent of income-earners and wealth-holders. Republicans' latest fights against unions' collective-bargaining rights are yet another example in a long line of narrow, self-serving policy proscriptions. This all too successful false acting and writing merits the Republicans' Oscars tonight.

This really isn't "news" since corporate and Republican interests have gone hand-in-glove for decades. The surprise is that so many small-timers (including TP'ers) seem to mistakenly believe the Republicans will help them out. How these folks actually believe their economic lives will be improved after the Republicans privatize Social Security and Medicare, eliminate regulatory oversight and decimate "wasteful" government programs can only be explained medically, not rationally. Republicans have been saying they want to do this since Regan, but to date have only managed to vastly increase the public deficit and benefit the rich.

What can we do about this? This is a problem because it's unlikely Republicans would knowingly agree to a regime of antipsychotic drugs such as Thorozine, Clozapine or Ativan that medical doctors can proscribe for schizophrenics. Without such drugs, I think we can only hope the more rational, non-schizophrenic Democrats will more actively and effectively fight for the well-being of the "bottom 99%" of the public. Unfortunately, it's a faint hope. And this means the Democrats can't give away the store before the political negotiations commence.

You remember the "checks and balances" we dutifully learned in school that serve as a keystone to our democratic form of government. Where is it when we need it? Because the Democrats have time and again proven too timid and unfocused, we've become all too unchecked and unbalanced. Here's but one example. I just read Jeffrey Toobin's book about our Supreme Court, The Nine. He documents the clear shift over the past six years to a conservative majority on the Court that will have legal, economic and political implications for years to come. (Chief Justice John Roberts is 56 years old.) To regain effective checks and balances, we need the Democrats to stop being shrinking violets and uniformly and publicly protect our national strengths such as a vibrant middle class and educational infrastructure.

Given the Democrats recent track record, I'm not overly confident this will happen. Ultimately, the Democrats need to reassert their role as active, united checkers and balancers against the Republican onslaught. I'm dismayed that President Obama's tactics to get something done have made him stray way too far from the hopes he engendered during his campaign. After all, he told us he would create "Change We Can Believe In." When I voted for him, I thought I was voting for responsible progress for more than the top 1% of Americans. So far, the change he's created is mere pennies on the dollar.

THE TIN CUP HALF EMPTY

We've now seen the President's FY2012 proposed budget and heard the Republican's misguided response. It's thoroughly depressing. Why? Because the political blather from the Republicans and Democrats who will be making fiscal decisions on next year's budget (and this year's, since the Congress ineptly hasn't even passed a budget for this fiscal year that began Oct 1^st, 2010) have vacuously promised to "reduce the deficit" without continuing to deal with the simple fact there's 9% unemployment or taking any consequential action on the main causes of the long-term (structural) deficit – the relentless growth of entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and of defense spending.

How can they get away with it? Because US citizens are too unknowing (a polite way of saying too dim) about what really ails us fiscally speaking. We may say we want the government to cut expenditures and to get "more efficient," but we really don't know what benefit this will produce or why it matters at all – except facetiously expecting our taxes to be reduced. We seem to think that cutting foreign aid or community development grants (which together account for about a tenth of 1% of total spending) will somehow make a momentous difference for our Federal deficit. It won't.

Realistically, the US public doesn't want the Federal deficit reduced. We want to continue enjoying the personal advantages of receiving our Social Security, our Medicare and other deficit-financed benefits without worrying about the tomorrows, especially if those tomorrows involve making any sort of financial sacrifice personally or collectively. In this sense, we're too selfish to care about the future. We want our government's largesse to continue, but don't want to pay for much of it. We talk about the future meaning something, but we don't act that way at all. We want our government to continue living beyond its means, and instead let our kids pay for our deficits.

As usual, and with the public's encouragement, politicians are aiming their fiscal guns at the wrong targets. The only way to meaningfully reduce our long-term deficit is to significantly cut mandated entitlements spending and security-defense spending that the military-industrial complex has all too successfully made most of us believe is "required" spending (which together account for an astonishing 80% of Federal government expenditures; and over 100% of government revenues). Security-defense spending has roughly doubled in real terms since 2001, to over $870 billion in FY2011. Has any politician walked the political plank and said we need to meaningfully reduce mandated spending? No; because they see no benefit in making such truthful statements; they want to stay in office. They only feel safe talking about cutting really minor amounts of discretionary spending that will have no effect in remedying our long-term structural deficit or focusing on ancillary issues like public pensions (a state or local issue, not a federal one).

As a consequence we, the allegedly strongest nation on Earth, will continue to pass our fiscal tin cup around the world's capital markets in search of investors to finance our ever-increasing deficits. The Chinese and others have been obliging in the recent past. Will they in the future? Hard to say, but just like Greece and Ireland, sooner or later such investors will demand more return (higher interest rates on US bonds) from a nation that does not have its longer-term fiscal house in order. When they do, overdue painful changes will be required.