Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:50 am
The act of replacing a high-priority action with a task of lower priority, or doing something of no importance at all and thus putting off important tasks to a later time is procrastination. The real issue, and problem with procrastinators, is ignoring the urgency of a high-priority task and in America, Republicans never place a high-priority on spending and the national debt until there is a Democrat in the White House that has been a regular occurrence dating back to the Reagan era. The priority for the last two Democratic presidents has been cleaning up the fiscal mess left by their Republican predecessors, and invariably, Republicans complicate matters by threatening to shut down the government to confound the Democratic president’s clean-up efforts and punish the people for electing a Democrat in the first place.
If it were not so serious, it would be comical that Republicans have the ability to prioritize reducing spending and the nation’s deficit when a Democrat is in the White House, because during Republican administrations, out-of-control spending and rising debt are the lowest priority possible for allegedly fiscally responsible conservatives. During George W. Bush’s administration, Dick Cheney reminded Americans over the course of eight years that Ronald Reagan said “deficits don’t matter,” and then on January 21, 2009 after Bush left President Obama a $1.2 trillion deficit for fiscal 2009, deficits instantaneously became Republicans highest priority next to cutting safety net spending and reducing the deficit they ran up for two unfunded wars, unfunded tax cuts for the rich, and an unfunded Medicare prescription plan.
Now, Republicans claim that the nation cannot procrastinate addressing eight years of Republican debt and out-of-control spending any longer, and to force the President to clean up the fiscal mess they left the country faster, are making very serious threats to shut down the government and default on the debt they racked up during the Bush era. Shutting down the government is a favorite ploy of Republicans during Democratic administrations and it informs more that Republicans are wreaking vengeance on the voters for electing a Democrat than fiscal policy, but that is the price Americans have had to pay for rejecting Republican presidential candidates.
Republicans are fond of claiming President Obama increased spending to unsustainable levels, but the facts do not bear out their assertion. The President has been so serious about reducing spending, that his record reveals he is a spendthrift compared to any Republican administration since Eisenhower. One House Republican, Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state said, “I think it is possible that we would shut down the government to make sure President Obama understands that we’re serious. We always talk about whether or not we’re going to kick the can down the road. I think the mood is that we’ve come to the end of the road.” The end of the road came when Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, and despite setting a record for the lowest spending in decades, Republicans are out to slash Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and any program unrelated to defense and corporate entitlements.
There is a contingent of Republicans who are panting to shut down the government just ”to get it out of their system, and to do that for member-management purposes — so they can show their constituents they’re fighting” according to a top GOP leadership adviser. One Utah Republican, Jason Chaffetz said Republicans will “shut things down or even default if Obama doesn’t bend on spending. No one wants to default, but we are not going to continue to give the president a limitless credit card” in spite of the President’s stingy fiscal policy. It is odd that Republicans freely gave George W. Bush a limitless credit card that President Obama is being charged for, and to demonstrate how serious they are, Republicans are wont to totally destroy the economy and shutdown the government unless retirees, Veterans, the poor, disaster victims, schools, soldiers, the disabled, and children absorb Republican cuts.
Yesterday at his press conference, President Obama called for $1.5 trillion more in deficit reduction to stabilize the nation’s fiscal trajectory, and according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the White House has done about $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction since the beginning of 2011 and recommended that lawmakers pursue about $1.4 trillion more to stabilize the deficit over the next 10 years. President Obama said, “we need about $4 trillion to stabilize our debt and our deficit, which means we need about $1.5 trillion more,” and the $4 trillion figure is precisely what he proposed in 2011 that flummoxed Republicans and led to a credit downgrade, the fiscal cliff, and sequester cuts looming in a couple of months. Still, Republicans are holding firm to their threats to shut down the government and default on the nation’s debt apparently because they “just want to get it out of their system” and show the President they are serious about spending cuts and deficit reduction.
This Republican Party is not serious about anything that does not ravage Medicare, Social Security, and safety nets while protecting bloated defense spending and corporate entitlements. Their highest priority, by their own admission, is crashing the economy and shutting down the government to punish the American people for re-electing President Obama and show their constituents they are fighting the President. The President gave them a sweet deal to avert the fiscal cliff and they balked the same way they shunned John Boehner’s absurd Plan B, and it is becoming apparent there is nothing whatsoever they will accept that does not include either a credit default and government shutdown, or eviscerating safety nets. They procrastinated addressing Bush’s out-of-control spending and deficit increases until a Democrat entered the White House at which time they suddenly became serious fiscal conservatives.
It seems there is nothing, and no-one, to rein in recalcitrant Republicans single-minded priority of obstructing President Obama from cleaning up their fiscal mess, or their insane and politically suicidal plan to shut down the government and cause a credit default. What is telling, is that they would rather cause a global economic catastrophe and decimate Americans than work with the President, and there is nothing as dangerous as dying tyrants lashing out at their own people, and whether they are angry they lost the election, or confounded at their inability to rule America, it is the American people who will suffer and sadly, that too is one of their highest priorities.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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