What have I been writing for many years? Looks like others are finally arriving where I am. From Michael Auslin at AEI:
Amid the oceans of spilled ink on U.S. government dysfunction, Democratic cynicism, GOP collapse, etc., the simplest point seems to be lost. We have a yawning chasm between the macroeconomic deficit and the microeconomic effect of higher taxes on individuals and businesses. Politics has become so un-moored from reality, or dismissive of its responsibility to the commonweal, that the mind-boggling details of political maneuver, debt ceilings, and a byzantine tax code miss the forest for the trees.
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Our crisis is political, not economic. Politics is ultimately a moral exercise, no matter what it deals with. Leaders are stewards of our social patrimony. What we see in Washington today is not gridlock. It is collapse. It is the final triumph of political theater over political reality, of ignorance over reasoned governing, of self-interest over principle. A $12 trillion economy and 230-plus-year history can survive a great deal of abuse and neglect. But history proves no state is immune from the self-inflicted idiocy of its leaders or people. Just how long we will survive in this state is now a proposition fully engaged. It is the great social experiment of the 21st century.
