Today, let’s look at entitlements and the recent and/or current rhetoric flying around this proud American institution. We could inflate this idea to cover all political discourse, from the debt-ceiling to free trade, but at the end of the day it’s the promises we cannot keep that are dragging us off the cliff. The history of state welfare dates back to the days of Otto von Bismarck’s German Empire (and probably much farther, in whatever form that culture formed) and can be found on the Internets, so we here at McSweeney’s Discount Submarines won’t waste your eye’s time on it. Instead, let’s examine the current participants, where they stand, but more importantly: what they say. Given that media-to-consumer technology has grown to unimaginable levels of complexity in terms of their reach and accessibility, every politician lives and works under somewhat uncomfortable conditions. All actions are carefully choreographed in order to serve their constituents honorably — but their words? Magnitudes greater. Such behavior extends to the highest levels of government, so because the Democrats are technically the party-in-government, let’s start with them.
House Democrats have begun brandishing rhetorical weapons behind House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, expressing defiance to the rest of the political spectrum’s desire to serve the citizenry a steaming bowl of austerity. They claim to possess the votes that Speaker of the House John Boehner needs to pass a debt-ceiling bill and avoid a Newt Gingrich situation. But how aggressive is their strategy? Rep. Gerald Connolly of Virginia quipped: “Triangulation isn’t going to work here. You need the Democratic Caucus to pass this.”(source) We love the word “triangulation” because it’s one of those words that most people use without knowing it’s meaning. Our dictionary says:
1) (in surveying) the tracing and measurement of a series or network of triangles in order to determine the distances and relative positions of points spread over a territory or region, esp. by measuring the length of one side of each triangle and deducing its angles and the length of the other two sides by observation from this baseline.
2) formation of or division into triangles.”
OK. If we’re reading this right, “triangulation” implies that Republicans are gauging, measuring, deducing angles — gathering data. It may be that the Honorable Rep. Connolly is right on the money in his rhetorical barb. Sure, drawing triangles is great, but if you can’t build a bridge then put the hammer down. Given that the American economy looks a lot like this , neither party wants to be the asshole who steps on the wrong board and brings the whole thing down. Instead they’ll just trade jabs until the last minute when they will bend to the globo-oligarchs and continue the bailout. My dictionary (courteously included in my 2006-era MacBook) lists that one as an informal noun, “an act of giving financial assistance to a failing business or economy to save it—
(Digression: bailout. Big thanks to the media for floating (hehe) this word into the common lexicon because it’s right on the money. Frantic sailors, buckets in hand while the sky keeps falling and falling…)
—from collapse.” Why do we drag this word in? Let’s face it — the Bush/kind of Clinton tax cuts at the turn of the millenium amounted to a massive bail-out of the American consumer, a “here ya go” that really meant “now send it back”. Given the procedures at the time for Congressional tax-writing, it was no surprise that the wealthy would quickly level up to über-wealthy thanks to generous “cuts”. At the time the entitlement programs were doing reasonably well so both Democrats, who were in opposition, and the Republicans, who had recently shaken off the Gingrichpocalpse, were glad to bailout the consumer economy. We’ve all been socialists (as some commentators rightly claim) since the 1930′s but everyone has chosen a different hat to present themselves beneath. In those days, everyone wore a Reagan mask because he embodied what all future politicians would privately model: huge promises with little and/or troubling positive return.
Going back to Congressional Democrats: The Hill.com (which is a fabulous site) throws us a few sound bites worth dissection. Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver, top dog of the Congressional Black Caucus (a 41-member posse), said he wouldn’t agree to entitlement cuts “[not] even if we were on drugs”. Note the extremity of his rhetorical imagery. It’s dismissive in tone and unfortunately does not translate into patriotic bipartisanship. Note the chemical/medicinal implications, as if to say that it would take a physical numbing of the mind by a foreign agent to get them to agree. And when was the last time you wanted to solve complex governmental challenges with someone who is a total douchebag to you? Exactly. Louise Slaughter called entitlements “sancrosanct”, a phrasing one could find troubling on grounds of ideological monument-building. Which is to say, you can build a monument to whatever belief you have, let it be universal health-care or monetary compensation after your “working life” ends, but the passage time and the evolution of culture dictates this cannot be.
This all boils down to something. Democrats have the ball on this one, right? Their numbers are more united than Republicans, whose issues stem largely from the mania of socio-fiscal austerity that grips a decent portion of their caucus. However, don’t count them out. The conservative rhetoric draws largely from the “death panel” pantheon of imagery — not the idea of Grandma and Grandpa being tossed from their health care, but torn away but financial ruin. But before we accuse Republicans of caring about American taxpayers, let’s examine an interview of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell conducted by Greta van Susteren on her eponymous show (source) just over two weeks ago:
For the sake of brevity we will focus on one paragraph that we think sums up the entire Republican position when it comes to the idea of a social welfare state. McConnell states:
“I still view this as an important opportunity for both sides to come together and do something really important. Look, we’ve got a $14 trillion debt. It’s as big as our economy. We look a lot like Greece and that doesn’t take into account there were $50 trillion in unfunded liabilities, $50 trillion. Standard and Poor’s, the ratings agency, Moody’s is saying you need to do something about spending and debt. I — I know the President knows that. He needs to come to his senses here and understand what can pass and what can’t pass.”
Like most political statements this smacks of preparation. The introduction speaks of bipartisanship, the “importance” of putting aside disagreements in favor of agreements. To them, the consensus that cutting taxes and spending — which, to be fair, is shared across the aisle — is paramount to the notion that raising taxes is a great way to bring in cash and prevent cuts to what might be called the “people’s programs”. Why not gather together around what we can agree and call it a day? Note the two times the word “important” is used in this sentence. Repetition sticks to the mind like a fly on light. Who said politicians aren’t crafty? After this, McConnell presents us with big numbers to make symbolic comparison with the economy to the national debt. He does this to instill a sense of gravity, to make the voter feel like they too stand before something monumental. Don’t get us wrong — the debt is a problem. But come on — don’t people invest in America because it’s so great to its citizenry? Moving on–McConnell brings in the powers-that-be: the ratings agencies. We have noticed in our data-mining that this notion carries across the political/media spectrum, this fear of the ratings agencies’ pen that tears a government away from precious funding. Not to say they don’t — look at Greece — but it should be noted by every American that politicians are openly suggesting the sacrifice of generations of work because Moody’s, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s say so. At the end: “can’t pass”. The sound of a shutting door. It’s true the mechanics of the Senate are different from the house, in that the globo-oligarchs have fewer bank accounts to fill, but unfortunately we must come back to the image of the covered bridge.
Two groups of people on either side of the bridge. It’s been raining for weeks. The wooden beams are mossy and creak when the wind blows through. The groups throw rocks, insults. You first, the rocks are saying. Where are the Americans? We’re the cars that drive over it each day. We have to slip past these factions gathering at the entrances, but we can do nothing to stop their fight. They shout words at us, confuse us, make us turn away. We, as citizens, need to study their language to navigate the repercussions of the words they say and how they impact our world. Rhetoric is a powerful tool in the wrong hands, but by knowing what they say and how they say it, knowing why they say it that way, we can stay above the water during all these bailouts. Look for RD segments examining issues on state levels in the coming days, because as this next election cycle will show, so-called “national sentiment” may lead us astray in determining what the political barometer of the nation reads. We apologize for the ramblyness of this post, as we are playing around with this concept still.
Keep your eye on the markets, because they say what people’s mouths can’t. Until next time, we are McSweeney’s Discount Submarines.
