You owe the Chinese Government almost $11,000. Next year that number will be closer to $15,000. Even as the United States national debt spans $9.4 trillion, it grows at the rate of one million dollars per minute, and no one it seems has the willpower to stop it. Moreover, the proposals of the presidential candidates, John McCain’s tax cuts and Barack Obama’s visions of universal health care, both smack of budget deficits. Yet when voters inquire as to how federal debts will get paid, neither McCain nor Obama will acknowledge the problem.
Indeed, among Democrats and Republicans the denial is truly mutual and for good reason; referencing the debt would be reminding voters of their government’s largest failure, a failure that has persisted for the last seventy-some years, all of which supervised by Democratic or Republican presidents. The fact is, our two political parties have created a duopoly, like Coca-cola and Pepsi, Energizer and Duracell, and like those companies they have no incentive to change their product, even if it doesn’t work.
Politically, raising taxes during an economic recession is suicide. Doing nothing, however–letting a problem you did not start fester–is virtually unpunishable. Likewise, paying back debts during an annual surplus is much less sexy than fighting climate change. So the buck will be passed once again, and again after that. When the few yearly budget surpluses that arrive do, they will be used to pay for new policy; when deficits come, they will be funded by selling our future; after all, the future can’t vote.
It will be years, maybe decades, before the dominance of the two party system is seriously questioned, but it will be, and these debts will be paid. There will be a time when perpetuating a failing system becomes as dangerous as changing it. Still, it remains to be seen how long that will take.
-David Lamb
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“before the dominance of the two party system is seriously questioned, but it will be…”
What makes you so sure?