Talking about the "silly season" in politics might be a redundancy. Right now both national parties are cooperating in displays of preposterous behavior that exceeds even their usual shortsightedness and irrationality.
The Republican candidates are busy lining up to endorse the Personhood Amendment, which gives "person" status to fetuses at conception. This idea has been rejected in such liberal bastions as Mississippi, and by such left-wing organizations as National Right to Life and the Catholic Bishops. Mississippians realized that this ridiculous proposal would reduce or eliminate their access to birth control, and permit the intrusion of an extreme segment of our society further into the intimacies of their lives. The anti-choice group and bishops cautioned against the personhood movement, because they know it would provide victories for the pro-choice position once it got into court.
But being ridiculous, offensive and self-defeating hasn't stopped Republican candidates to from lining up to sign on to the fetal personhood program.
In the spirit of bipartisanship, the Democrats are engaged in a similar leap into short-term image boost at the cost of long term success. They're trying to capitalize on the mistakes of their opponents, by watching the Republicans oppose tax relief for 160 million Americans at Christmastime.
The problem is, the particular issue here is the Social Security payroll deduction, down to 4.2% from its usual 6.2%.
Let me tell you something. I'm not an economist, but I'm pretty sure if you maintain the level of the payout, but reduce the money coming in, you're going to run into problems down the road. A kid with a paper route could figure that one out, but evidently the Democrats haven't. Social Security is a successful and hugely popular program we've had in place for over 75 years. The Republicans and their pals in the press keep saying that Social Security is an entitlement - which it is manifestly not - and that it's running out of money. Which it's not, yet.
By extending the cut in money going into Social Security, the Democratic Party is doing the work of the Republicans. Democrats are undermining a program that's been the bedrock of the liberal social agenda since the New Deal, a program that is perennially popular with a heavy majority of voters. They're also setting themselves up big time for a January trouncing by the Republicans, who will return from their vacations to negotiate a longer-term extension of the 2% reduction. The Republicans will say, fine, keep the payment at 4.2%, but to offset that loss of income to Social Security, let's cut Social Security benefits.
Thus we have the picture here of both parties collaborating to give themselves short term victories, at a long term cost to millions of American citizens,
Question for the day: are our elected representatives cynical wheeler-dealers, fools, or . . . . both?
The Salt Marsh in Early Autumn
