Committees, Compromise, and Calamity

By William L. Garvin

During the Republican presidential debate, Newt Gingrich called the debt reduction committee one of the “stupidest ideas that Washington has ever come up with.” That immediately brought to mind the old saying that “a camel is a horse designed by a committee.” There is virtually no hope for a successful plan coming out of this committee unless you are looking for the welfare state to triumph over the Pentagon.

This recipe for disaster was clearly evidenced by Nancy Pelosi’s appointment of James Clyburn to the committee and Clyburn’s subsequent pontifications. Clyburn, the Representative from South Carolina is the third-ranking Democrat in the House and a lockstep Obama supporter. Predictably, on Monday morning he said he looked forward to the committee “narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor.” Naturally he ignored the mission of the committee which is to identify $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. When this was pointed out to him, he non-responsively declared that he was an “anomaly” who was not only a staunch defender of “entitlements” but also a strong defender of the military. His record shows him to be an unequivocal defender of entitlements but not so of the military. In fact, he had earlier specifically singled out the military for cuts! He had also upset the stage for compromise and cooperation by accusing Republicans of “taking the entire economy hostage.” Nevertheless, that begs the question, if entitlements and defense are off the table, where will the cuts come from? To Democrats, taxing “the rich” is the only answer because they never cut the constituencies they depend upon for votes.

The same theme dominates the “Debt Man Walking”, taxpayer funded, campaign bus tour the President is currently undertaking. He’s blaming the Tea Party; he’s blaming the Republicans; he’s blaming corporations; he’s blaming “the rich.” What of course he will not blame is the economic illiteracy that characterizes his failed policies, his failed administration, and the failing spend-spend-spend Keynesian theology he so religiously embraces.

He and his acolytes even blame the economic engine, private sector business, for not hiring and for sitting on their profits. Frankly, that is a wise course of action until the next moves of this job-destroying Administration are made clear. Laughably, they claim that hiring additional employees is a patriotic duty of all employers because it is “tax insensitive,” i.e., no cost to the employer. Restaurants should hire more cooks and waitpersons even if there are no diners. Manufacturers should put on another shift even if there is no demand for their products. The oil companies should hire more roughnecks even if the Feds won’t let them drill. The United States is in the business of business and it’s disastrous when our leaders don’t understand the first thing about making payroll!

It also appears they should invest in an “anger management” curriculum. With all the hatred they espouse toward “the rich,” Big Oil, Coal, Nuclear, Big Business, Small Business, Insurance, Doctors, Hospitals, Wall Street, Banks, Standard and Poor’s, etc., they are setting the stage for London coming to your city soon. The combination of “hate the rich” and a prevailing entitlement mentality created by generations of government dependency is ripe for spontaneous combustion. The “flash mobs” that have become “flash robs” in Philadelphia, Washington, Las Vegas, Chicago, and even Ottawa, are minor manifestations of the full scale riots across the pond. Groups of “miscreants,” mostly youth, some impoverished, others not so, arrive in droves at a store where they overwhelm the help and steal anything they can lay their hands on.

As with the Brits, they show no remorse since the mom and pop furniture store or the corner convenience store is indistinguishable from a corporate chain to their self-serving rapacious psyches. While stealing thousands of dollars of merchandise, they often destroy the premises. Rather than being remorseful, many of these looting, feral punks actually film their activities and post them online as some sort of significant accomplishment. When you are raised to feel “entitled” to anything that anyone else has and when you are encouraged to hate the rich and successful, the class warfare outcomes, the generational warfare outcomes are predictable. True leaders don’t exacerbate these problems and committees won’t solve them!