There has been only one shaft of light in the political melodrama which has gripped Washington this summer: the surprising return of Gabrielle Giffords, the congresswoman from Arizona, who was wounded critically by an angry gunman last January.
As the final vote on the debt agreement was being taken in the House of Representatives, she emerged, unannounced, to cast her ballot. Her appearance in the chamber was an act of courage and toughness; few had expected her to survive the hail of bullets let alone regain her health enough to return to work, at least temporarily.
She was greeted warmly by her colleagues. It represented a rare moment of accord, even unanimity, in a wasting struggle over debt and default which has soiled just about everyone.
When Giffords was shot last winter, it set off yet another anguished debate over guns in a society with too many of them. The reluctance of Americans to come to terms with this malaise leaves the civilized world incredulous.
And so it is with the debt crisis, which represents a similar impasse. As Americans cannot disarm themselves so they stop killing themselves, they cannot discipline themselves to control a runaway debt that threatens their wealth and stature. Here, too, their denial is staggering, especially to Canadians and Britons, who have had to make these hard economic decisions.
The agreement means the United States will not default on its debt, as many had feared. The full faith and credit of the republic endures.
But it will not solve the problem, as economists have warned. At best, it will postpone it. Meanwhile the reduction in government spending is likely to weaken a delicate economy facing a double-dip recession. The agreement is less a promissory note than a junk bond. Fundamentally, it defers the problem in the hope that a future president and a future Congress can come to an agreement in a way that this divided government could not.
This is what happens when a country elects a progressive president in 2008 followed by a conservative Congress two years later. Both think they have a mandate. The result is a pox on everyone's house.
Obama, for his part, missed an opportunity to address the debt issue last December. He presumed the Republicans would act responsibly. He deferred to Congress, as he did on his health care bill, and he lost control of the issue.
In the negotiations over the debt ceiling he was less a broker than a bystander. When the action shifted to Congress it made Obama less chief executive than first responder.
True, the deal gives him two things he wanted: an assurance that the United States would not default on its debt, which was a prospect no president can accept; and an assurance that the debt ceiling would not be revisited before next year's presidential election.
For that, though, he settled for an agreement which belies "the balanced approach" of spending cuts and tax increases that he had championed. Astonishingly, he agreed to a deal which doesn't raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, which would not have solved the problem, of course, but would have made a statement on fairness.
Obama surrendered. The cost is his credibility. It reinforces an image of a president reluctant to take a position, whether it was reinstating the expiring tax cuts on the wealthy last winter or going to war in Libya last spring.
It should worry him that half the Democrats in the House opposed the measure, and the progressive wing of the party is in revolt. Thousands of his supporters threaten to abandon him.
If Obama looks weak, so does House Speaker John Boehner. His original proposal passed by only a few votes, with many Republicans opposed. He has a rift in his caucus.
No wonder that one wag called the morose, well-tanned Boehner, who is often given to tears, "the world's saddest tangerine." Some expect a challenge to his leadership.
Then there is the Tea Party, the new Jacobins. In holding the country ransom and threatening to send it into an unprecedented default, they humbled the president, humiliated the speaker, stopped tax increases, and won spending cuts.
Sure, they complained the cuts weren't deep enough, and they don't like the prospect of cutting defence spending in a country where it is an article of faith. And most of the Tea Party Republicans in Congress did agree to raising the debt ceiling, which they said they wouldn't.
By and large, though, they got their way, which also means that they now own the debt package, which may be unpopular.
The deal sets the table for 2012, where the divided Republicans can argue for a nation of small government and lower taxes and the divided Democrats can argue for a nation of modest government and reasonable taxes with obligations to the weakest in society.
And then, perhaps, Americans will decide the kind of country they want.
Andrew Cohen is a professor of journalism and international affairs at Carleton. E-mail: andrewzcohen@yahoo.ca
I think you are generally right about China. But for US, I'm not very sure. It's easy for US to break up too once white states are fed up with the latino immigrants in the south. The movement of breaking California is a rehearsal for this.
I believe there's no miracle in this world. There's always rational reasons behind anything that appears to be a miracle in ignorant eyes. The uprising of China in last 30 years is just for China to return to its norm, but it may have overshot the process to another end of extreme.
Everything that has been overdone will correct by itself naturally, although the process can be anything but natural.
Thanks for another good article.
葫芦娃爸爸 发表评论于
此文分析的很透彻,我很赞同。
ShengQi 发表评论于
I usually don't like your articles, but this one is GOOD!