I'll get to the inconvenient truth part in a minute, but first Thanksgiving. It was nice, it was just Paul and me, and all the food turned out well except the last tray of rolls which were forgotten in the oven. Also, apparently Paul had some sort of cooking incident that covered the stove in gravy and involved fire. As gravy is not flammable, I do not know how/what happened. Assume it was comical. Here's a picture of the spread, if case you are still worried we secretly starved to death.
Now to the inconvenient truth part. I am losing my faith in Americans, specifically the electorate. Back in November, the New York Times ran a nifty little interactive feature on its website. It asked viewers to solve the deficient through a series of mixed options of cuts and tax raises. I think everyone needs to try this feature--especially those in Congress--because it makes it painfully clear that some hard choices are needed to balance the budget and that no single approach (cuts or tax increases) is going to cut it (no pun intended).
That doesn't really explain my concern about the American electorate, does it? Well, the New York Times took the responses from the game and analyzed them. It was by no means scientific, just intriguing. Or terribly depressing. The five most popular cuts/taxes increases were (in order): Reduce the size of the military to pre-Iraq war levels, additional cuts to troops in Asia and Europe; allow Bush-era tax cuts for incomes above $250,000 to expire; reduce Social Security for those with high incomes; reduce nuclear arsenals and space spending; cancel or delay some weapons programs. Those five were out of forty options. Of the total forty options, five were able to garner at least 50% of support from both those who overall favored tax increases (likely liberals) and those who overall favored budget cuts (likely conservatives). Many of the responses were widely divergent. And that's why I worry about the American electorate--because they seem farther and farther apart, more interested in ideological purity than fact, willing to take nothing if all isn't available to them, view pragmatism and compromises as failings instead of virtues, and place self over country.
This ideological purity fetish is more than short-sighted and foolish. It's the modern equivalent of bread and circuses, and it's downright dangerous. The more Republicans refuse to compromise (thanks the the perceived power of the the Tea Party movement), the more the necessary function of government is stalled. Members of Congress can waste weeks on quarreling over the repeal of "Don't ask, don't tell" or raise constant questions about the current president's legitimacy (Native-born? Christian? America-hating commie?), but something that should be easily bipartisan like the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act can't get enough votes to pass the Senate. Endless arguments over abortion; the acceptability of homosexuals as adoptive parents, soldiers, or spouses; and illegal immigration distract from far more important and pressing issues such as basic budgeting and comprehensive reforms of health care, immigration, and tort law.
Of course, those are also indirect. Sure, the legislative process is grinding to a halt, but the infrastructure is intact and the world keeps on turning. So let's turn to Arizona. I've ranted before about the gut job Arizona's very conservative, very Republican legislature did in an effort to balance the budget. Well, one of the things that is finally getting some attention is that Arizona cut transplants for Medicaid recipients with certain health conditions. 100 people on the transplant list are now unable to afford the $200,000 the transplants can cost. At least one of those people had a donor organ located, but could not receive it because his family could not come up with the cash. People die, I get that. People die, even in a first world "exceptional" country, because they cannot afford advanced medical treatment, I get that too. The question is should it happen? Cutting those transplants saved a million dollars in a multi-billion dollar deficit. The same people who rail against "Obamacare," also oppose the states making up the slack or forcing private insurers to provide affordable care to all. I can't speak about the entire legislature, but I can speak about the chair of the appropriations committee and top Republican who lives in Paradise Valley, median home price: $1.74 million, and say his health care costs probably don't keep him up at night.
Which brings me to my final point--the right end of the political spectrum seems increasingly easy to lump together under a single slogan: Screw you, I got mine. So the Tea party and their very conservative Republican allies (and even a few Democrats), with their blaring about individual freedoms and personal rights, don't care about you. That would require thinking about others--their freedoms, rights, and welfare. And the rest of the American electorate seems too apathetic to care, or at least vote.
That's the inconvenient truth.
