By Isaac Yetiv, PhD
LA JOLLA, California — They have done it again. Five hundred thirty seven elected officials in Washington and their thousands of aides, staff, lawyers, and lobbyists using tons of expensive modern equipment, could not produce, after months of bickering, mutual blaming and accusing, a just and lasting solution to the financial mess they have themselves created. Are we sliding toward a different kind of government? A government by crisis and emergency situations where demagoguery, lies, and scaremongering triumph over checks and balances, compromises, preparedness and foresight, and the rule of law?
This time, they called it “fiscal cliff” to scare and alarm the people. At the last minute, after midnight as usual, an agreement was announced in the Senate, forcing the House to sign up in haste “or be blamed for the fiscal cliff,” whatever it is. With a huge dissent in their ranks, the Republican majority in the House caved in: the President got his raise in taxes, but there were no spending cuts, as the protracted “negotiations” let the naive believe. Maybe later…maybe never. The tax raise will bring 620 billion dollars, but 4 trillion (6 times more) will be added to the national debt. And Moody predicts a loss of 600,000 jobs, and maybe a downgrading in the credit rating of the US government. What a pyrrhic victory for the country !
For the issue was clearly NOT the bill, arrived at via a bi-partisan compromise, but the humiliation and the splitting of the GOP. In that, the president succeeded brilliantly. It was the triumph of politics over policy.
This was apparently not enough: the proverbial ink had not yet dried on this “deal” –better say capitulation–when the Democratic trumpets started blowing their talking points: Obama declared, “We are not done raising taxes,” echoed by Pelosi and others. The “fiscal cliff” was the first salvo in the political battle. Three more ominous events are expected to follow:
1) What is strangely called “the sequester” (or, even worse, “the sequestration”?)– that’s the automatic cut in spending across the board– will still occur, they say. I don’t understand why. The “deal” was supposed to avert that.
2) The federal budget will soon expire, they say. Surprising, since we have been without a budget, in violation of the Constitution, for more than 3 years. And what was proposed by the president was rejected off-hand by Republicans and Democrats.
3) The periodic need for “raising the debt ceiling” which the president will ask the Congress in February to authorize, as he has done four times before– last time was on August 2011, less than one year and a half ago when it was raised from 14 to 16 trillion, and now he will ask to raise it to 18 trillion (!).
This problem is the worst of the triple whammy. The Republicans who feel they have been had on the “fiscal cliff” will, I think, stand firm on this one. And , of course, Obama will demagogue it, proclaiming the dangers of “not paying the bills, defaulting, shutting down the government…not being able to mail Social Security checks to the elderly, etc.”He will also continue to display the same carelessness and irresponsibility to the intractable debt that could never be repaid and may lead to bankruptcy. This time he dared to demand unlimited power to borrow as he wishes, and he and his minions are dangling the possibility of using Executive Orders to do so as they have for gun control and as they have done for immigration and welfare work. It is ironic that, in 2007, Obama himself denounced the excessive use of Executive Orders which, he said, “is subject to abuse…and we must respect the Constitution.” As a Senator in 2006 he voted against raising the debt ceiling.
As I close this article, I hear the president’s announcement that he has given 23 (yes, 23) executive orders on the issue of gun control. Legal experts will disagree on what is within his constitutional powers and what is not. I humbly believe that most of them deal with technicalities, rules and regulations, the “how” of things,and are therefore within his prerogatives. After all,the Second Amendment consecrate the right of the citizens to bear arms , not to drive a tank or carry a bazooka.
But any attempt to abrogate or alter it will certainly be challenged.
What I fear is the precedent established of the use of executive orders en masse , and their disastrous effects if the president is tempted to use them to raise the debt ceiling or ,worse, to abolish it.
These attempts at intimidation, circumventing the Congress in violation of the Constitution, do not augur well for the future governance of the country, for its peace and stability, let alone economic prosperity. They can only lead to a totalitarian one-party rule, or worse, one-man rule. This is not far-fetched, or impossible. History is replete with such “unbelievable” occurrences. Napoleon Bonaparte , the Corsican, once exclaimed,with arrogant contempt for the French, that ” the crown of France was lying on the floor (and) he had only to bend , pick it up and crown himself.”
Is American society ripe for the crowning of Barack Hussein Obama?