CAN'T YOU JUST GOVERN?

Thursday, January 3, 2013

No more government at gunpoint
By Kelvin Wade
From page A7 | January 03, 2013 | 2 Comments

It’s sad having to ring in the new year ashamed of our Sword of Damocles government.

For the uninitiated, Damocles was a courtier to King Dionysius. Damocles remarked how fortunate the king was to have such power and wealth. The king arranged for them to trade places. After Damocles sat upon the throne, the king hung a sword over his head, dangling by a single strand. Damocles quickly gave the king his throne back; the point being made how worrisome and dangerous it was to be king.

Our government, since it cannot govern as the Founding Fathers intended, decided to hang multiple swords above our heads in the form of the “fiscal cliff.” Though the Senate, House and president dealt with the first sword by passing a deal at the eleventh hour should give us no solace.

The expiring Bush tax cuts could’ve been dealt with last year. The Senate passed a law extending the tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans and the House could’ve saved us unnecessary drama by passing it.

Next up is the debt ceiling. Raising the debt ceiling allows the United States to pay bills that we’ve already incurred. For the first time, Republicans used the debt ceiling as a hostage in 2011 and extracted concessions at the cost of our AAA credit rating, harm to the economy and our national prestige. Now they’re poised to do it again and again, risking a global depression by turning the U.S. into a deadbeat nation.

Then there’s sequestration. These are automatic, deep spending cuts in defense and domestic spending that have been triggered because Congress couldn’t settle on any other cuts. This week’s deal postponed them two months.

Deadlines focus the mind. A newspaper columnist tends to get a lot more productive the closer his/her deadline approaches. Deadlines are necessary for a lot of different endeavors. But to run democracy by deadline and governance by hostage-taking is insane because often you settle for anything just to make the deadline.

California is a textbook case of how not to run a government, but even we manage to cut spending and enact new revenues in a more reasonable manner than the federal government.

Locally, we were faced with ruin and again the people and local government stepped up and through cuts and passage of Measure P, we’ve managed to govern ourselves.

But in Washington, we’re prepared to once again go through the high-stakes fight over the debt ceiling and demonstrate to the world that the world’s premiere democracy may just be in its death throes. President Obama says he’s not going to negotiate over the debt ceiling. Knowing the president’s pathetic history of negotiating, I don’t believe him.

But to end this Sword of Damocles, governance by hostage-taking, the president needs to stick to his word. Shoot the hostage. Call Congress’ bluff. Let them push the country to the brink of oblivion and beyond.

No more governance by pledge or artificial deadlines with catastrophic consequences. Just sit down, debate, negotiate, compromise and do your job. Peace.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
ADDITIONAL NOTES: Setting up these crises in order to force themselves to negotiate is asinine. Our leaders are sent to Washington to govern. It hurts consumers, the markets, the economy, relations with allies and the global economy for us to govern by hostage taking and/or time bombs. If you and I disagreed vigorously over an issue, would you want to prod us to negotiate by locking ourselves in a room with a bomb that was designed to detonate in an hour? The presence of the bomb and time would certainly force us to negotiate but it would also prompt us to agree to anything to avoid the horrible outcome. Then, imagine the same scenario except one of us is completely willing to let us both die. That's what we have in Washington and it's crazy. It's no way to run a superpower.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remembering Matt Garcia

Image
Ten years ago, I woke up and turned on my laptop and went to the Daily Republic website and was devastated to learn of the shooting of Fairfield City Councilman Matt Garcia. I immediately called my brother Tony who answered and knew why I was calling. We shared our shock and horror. But mainly we just cried together on the phone. Later when Matt had been removed from life support and passed away I told Tony that it felt like hope itself had died. He told me, “Matt has inspired too many people to let hope die. But hope took a beating today.” It seemed like some horrible cosmic joke. Twenty-one year old Matt Garcia, elected to the Fairfield City Council on a platform of supporting youth and curbing violence is murdered on the streets of Fairfield. What's worse, his killer mistook him for someone else. It was a pointless act of evil in which a worthless example of a human being took the life of a priceless one. In 2007 Matt invited me to lunch at Joe's Buffet to discuss...
Read more

What if we could enforce our own driving laws?

Image
Thursday, June 6, 2013 Let’s all enforce our own driving laws By Kelvin Wade From page A11 | June 06, 2013 | Leave Comment Vallejo resident Anthony Cardenas, 52, became a local hero after painting his own crosswalk near his home on Sonoma Boulevard at Illinois Street. Cardenas claims the busy street is dangerous for pedestrians, so he painted the crosswalk and earned himself an arrest for felony vandalism and trip to jail for his trouble. Mr. Cardenas makes me want to place my tongue firmly in cheek and take matters into my own hands to make things safer. Have you ever had idiots zoom down your street in complete disregard for kids in the neighborhood? I’d love to creep outside at 3 a.m. with some cement and make my own speed bumps. The next time the speedsters come flying down my street, they’d make a sunroof with their own heads when they hit my new speed bump. BAM! Problem solved. Last week, my friend Nedra Polk asked me to write about the condition of Clay Bank Road between Air B...
Read more

The reason I've ditched my earphones at night

Monday, August 26, 2013 FAIRFIELD-SUISUN, CALIFORNIA Accident convinces me to ditch my iPad By Kelvin Wade From page A7 | August 22, 2013 | 4 Comments I’ve been an insomniac for years. I used to embrace my insomnia by putting on a pot of coffee at night and doing some of my best writing while the stars were out. I wrote about having a sleep study a couple of months ago and one of the things the analyst told me is I have to stay off my iPad in bed. That hasn’t happened. But recently, my girlfriend Cathi stumbled upon a cure for my nightly iPad habit. So there I was in the middle of the night in bed with earphones in listening to an awesome version of Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Live and Let Die” while pummeling various victims in “Words with Friends” on my iPad when I heard a boom. I turned on a lamp and saw my Beagle, Theo, panting at the bedroom door. I thought he’d jumped against the door to get my attention. Lately, he’s had to go out a lot at night (a dog with the bladder of a mouse...
Read more