Plunge off the cliff or just a bungee-jump?

Having (just) recovered from my shock at the result of the presidential election I was intending to call this post 'Whither America' but accurate prognostication is obviously not my strong point!  Thus, I have confined my opinion to the immediate American future which commentators tell us might lead to a suicide drive over the so-called 'fiscal cliff'.  If this happens, the doomsters tell us, the resulting crash will reverberate round our poor, old, long-suffering globe.  Or perhaps not, according to that shrewd observer, Irwin M. Steltzer, in The Weekly Standard.  According to him, whether or not Obama gets what he wants from the leading House Republican, John Boehner, he will still get what he wants!  If Boehner and the Republicans refuse to agree a deal on January 1st and the car goes over the cliff leading to hefty tax rises for everyone then Obama will simply offer an immediate Bill exempting evryone on less than $250k and dare the Republicans to oppose it.  Thus he will get what he wants by way of tax increases.  As to the immediate cuts in defence spending, that will be mitigated by the rundown of the war in Afghanistan and anyway, Obama and the Dems will not be too unhappy see cuts in the defence budget.  In any event, they intend to spend huge amounts on 'infrastructure' projects which they believe will invigorate the economy and help pick up the slack, so they are obviously tending to believe in the bungee jump theory!  The other factor coming in aid of the President is one I referred to recently and that is the shale oil/gas revolution which is providing 'America Inc.' with the cheapest energy costs in the world.  That alone will strengthen the elasticity in the bungee!

Meanwhile, Jeffrey L. Scribner in The American Thinker reminds us that the rattled Republicans still hold one strong card and that is their ability to vote against any increase in the debt ceiling.  So even if Obama gets his tax increases he will be hogtied by his inability to borrow money and his socialist programme for his last term will be still-born.  In my opinion, Obama and his apparatchiks are determined, in Brown & Balls' style, to ram through even bigger entitlements which they hope will win the Democrats the next election but if they lose it will leave the Republicans (like our Tories) with the shitty end of the stick.

The real test in this confrontation is not of Obama's nerve but that of the Republican party.  As 'The Kraut' points out in The WaPo with his usual bluntness:

Obama has never once publicly suggested a structural cut in entitlements. On the contrary, he created an entirely new entitlement — Obamacare — that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will increase spending by $1.7 trillion over 11 years.

What’s he thinking? Doesn’t Obama see looming ahead the real economic cliff — a European-like collapse under the burden of unsustainable debt? Perhaps, but he wants to complete his avowedly transformational social-democratic agenda first and let his successors — likely Republican — act as tax collectors on the middle class (where the real money is) and takers of subsidies from the mouths of babes.

On the subject of forecasting the future, I was amused by this entry in today's report from those cynical fellows at KnightWatch:

Today the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence posted and published a new document entitled Global Trends 2030. Attempts to download and read the document proved futile much of the day. However, many news commentators were more successful. Already that document has been cited as important for dozens of reasons.

The document is an examination of various futures 18 years in the future, 2030 having been selected for no apparent reason. There is an odd trait of intelligence analysts that makes them unable to predict great and imminent harm to US interests in the next month or two, but makes them confident about forecasts for the next 20 years.

Oh goodie, so it's not just me then!

 

Comments

[Able]

Isn't that exactly what Prof. Land listed in the articles you gave us for homework, the trend of politicians deciding policy not on the wishes of the electorate, belief or even principle but on the wish to do harm to the opposition. Proof of his theorem then.

(Do I get a gold star, for at least reading it. Oh and I left the apple on your desk)

[JK]

"KnightWatch" Duffers?

And those "tax-rates increases" - my guess is Obama could raise 'em up to 99% and still those with the means to hire the tax expertise'd remain paying effectively 14%.

What would undoubtedly be bad were for persons earning somewheres above $250,001 to oh, roundabouts $350,000.

(But only so long as those fail to Make Like Mitt and offshore their liquid assets.)

[rogerh]

Interesting. Perhaps the 2016 election is the real determinant. The Republicans seem a bit stuck - on the one hand they look hard-faced boneheads - on the other they retain funding from interest groups. Will depend on who the Democrats line up and whether GOP can find a replacement for Mitt. I reckon the GOP will blink.

Re prediction - I once worked with a 'guru' who declared 'the internet is fast growing but a zero billion dollar business - and will stay that way'. Never predict - especially the future, and Consultancy - there's less to it than meets the eye.

[David Duff]

If you read all of Land's essays, Able, you are obviously prefect material! Oh, and creeping will get you everywhere!

What's wrong with 'KnightWatch', JK? You are quite right to suppose that the mega-rich will duck and dive but, even worse for America, they will also depart - much as the French zillionaires are doing. This, of course, will drag your economy further down but Obama and his 'polit-bureau' will happily fill the spaces with yet more government control. Have you learned the words of 'The Internationel' yet?

In my view, Roger, *this* election was the crucial one. A majority of the America electorate chose socialism and there will be no going back. Obama will ram through as much as he can get away with in the next four years and, having left the country with eye-watering problems, he will leave it to a Republican administration to make themselves even more detested if they try to right the fiscal wrongs. Actually, barring the possibility of an 'authentic' (please note, JK!) Republican president the chances are that they will simply go with the flow much as post-WWII Tory governments went along with Labour's socialism. The results of the decline of America will be very interesting - and you know what they say about 'interesting times'!

[JK]

"Noted" David.

Any suggestions as to where one should seek one? Sarah Palin perhaps, she of the "I was for The Bridge to Nowhere before I was against it!"?

Paul Ryan who on September 23, 2008 proclaimed, "Madam Speaker, this legislation offends my principles so I'm going to vote for it to preserve my principles!"?

I actually do David, understand what you're meaning with your using "authenticity" - but given how the process of getting elected has devolved - searching for an "authentic Republican" (and getting the necessary vote tallies for the swearing in) will be much like mounting a search for a walking talking dodo.

I suppose we could dig up Reagan, extract some bits of DNA then clone him. It's just that I have serious doubts whether Reagan(B.) could survive the Primary Process.

[JK]

I'm only adding this because I'm awake at this ungodly hour - and your archives David, provide me with such glee ("What's wrong with 'KnightWatch' indeed?) ...

"Having (just) recovered from my shock at the result of the presidential election I was intending to call this post 'Whither America' but accurate prognostication is obviously not my strong point!"

(& besides, you've included a handy link to probably the handiest picture of our current crop of "authentic" Republicans - ah these trips down Memory Lane!)

http://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/duff_nonsense/2011/08/hate-to-say-it-michele-baby-but-shut-up.html

[Incidentally - the Federal tax on petrol-at-the-pump is 18¢ - but Obama is proposing to raise it an additional 19¢. I don't know what any of the rest of our States' taxes are, but gas [petrol] is taxed at 26¢/gallon in Arkansas. For transport -trucks- the means by which most Arkies get groceries, the tax on diesel is 54¢.]

[David Duff]

JK, I am still unable to decipher what you meant by "KnightWatch" Duffers?. Do please xplain, I can't sleep at nights.

And it's no good you picking nits over what this or that politician said on this or that particular subject - if I wanted the Archbishop of Canterbury for a political leader I would suggest it! You expect politicians to duck and dive, and even change their minds (a good thing some of them do!) but it is necessary to discern a driving force behind them which is above and beyond the mere desire to be re-elected. For example, Obama is 'authentic' although the 'Great American Public', or most of them at any rate, were too thick to see it!

[JK]

Kforcegov dot com, NightWatch. "Knight"'d be nice but that'd be kinda implicatious. No men in armor, just guys reading stuff that begins happening just after the sun sets west of Oahu.

Sad to say - I do expect every politician but unfortunately nowadays - every one Left of Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter is in fear of getting labelled RINO. (This just applies to the Party I've voted for since I became eligible to vote - the Democrats are expected to sound stark-raving bonkers.)

So. During the Primaries if a currently-holding-office Governor bordering say Mexico, say's his state offers in-state tuition to, as the song says, Born In The USA (otherwise known as 'natural born citizens') - the retorting candidate is expected to say, "We need to deport him/her along with his parents so they can all get in line and wait ten years to apply for papers"

The candidate at the end of the retort line is forced to say, "To heck with that, we need to nuke Mexico and if anybody is still in line, only then can they apply."

Catchy phrases like Nine Nine Nine as we've seen work for oh, maybe three weeks. The Lamestream Press doesn't work at all - and if 'the driving force' wasn't sufficient to get 'em elected in the first place - as you note yourself above, the "mere desire to get re-elected" isn't applicable.

If you ever got around to reading the link for the Koch brothers I provided a day or so ago - they've a pretty good strategy change the narrative constantly speaking the 'enititlements' as if those only apply to Medicare and Social Security only serve to scare the likeliest voting bloc - of either Party persuasion. Really, only the oh, 50 years or older are always to be depended on to vote.

Make the narrative, 'no ethanol subsidies, no Solyndras' - and if the subjects of 'gay marriage or abortion' come up - the correct answer in the Primaries is, "Those are matters for the States to decide for themselves." Saying such as that explicitly serves to tell the voters to decide for themselves. In effect, that furthers the notion that politics (power) is truly - local.

I do not suggest a change in Strategy - I do in Tactics.

I'm generally of the opinion Obama's formula for success was simply to paint his opposition as more intrusive than he.

[David Duff]

Duh! 'There's none so blind as them wot can't see! - especially at (k)night! Thanks, JK, I got there in the end.