Feeling Superior by Failure

In the time past the ‘failure’ of the so-called congressional “super committee” meant to determine some kind of deficit reduction for the federal government much news on the subject is consumed of finger pointing blaming political parties, think tankers and tea partiers. Never mentioned is the question of if there was some kind of agreement if it would have even been adopted by both congressional houses and eventually signed by the President.

The apparent failure was foreseen by many making the committee a joke. The House of Representatives passed a budget this past spring containing budget cuts much greater than those that were to come from the committee and it has never been brought up in the Senate, the same Senate that has failed to pass a federal budget in more than two years. How anyone paying attention could think that a subset of congress could come up with what has so far proved elusive, namely any kind of budgetary restraint, and then have it prove acceptable by their peers is absurd.

Compromise is well and good on positions where there exists some daylight. On matters budgetary one side is dedicated to cuts while the other is dedicated to higher taxes. There really isn’t a middle ground there because once raised taxes effectively justify what is viewed as excessive and irresponsible spending. And as put forth by advocates of big government funded by increased taxation on some believe their position virtuous and cuts only justify their opponent’s characterizations of excessive and irresponsible spending.

All the finger pointing is simply an attempt at feeling self important and superior. There is no guarantee that tax increases will increase revenue to the government and no one ever went broke not spending what they did not have. Buying into the blame narrative is not seeing the forest for the trees. The composition of our government’s legislative and executive branches is made up of representatives duly elected by the people. One side had complete control for two years leading to a historic change in one half of the legislative branch leading to deadlock. Priorities in the legislative branch are led by ideologies and the current stalemate will not cease until we the favor a side