These options were rejected or not considered at all. From which, one
has to conclude that the President really did want a big budget-cutting
deal. He just wanted -- like any politician -- the appearance of being
bullied into it.
So now the die is cast. Practically nothing to
address any real economic problem can now get done. Actual austerity
will come slowly -- the cuts are not abrupt and some may yet be blocked --
but unless there is a radical change of events or mood it will come.
Meanwhile as the economy stalls and despair deepens, the deficits and
debt will continue to climb.
Short presidencies
The deficit lobbies are shifting: their next step will be to raise
doubts about the plan's credibility and about Congress's will to enforce
it. They will then make the self-protective assertion that still
stronger steps are needed. European observers of Greek/Irish/
Portuguese/ British/Spanish and Italian politics -- not to mention Latvia
or Hungary -- will find all of this familiar.
Maybe, if they are especially loyal to their true masters, then like
the former budget director Peter Orszag they can go to work for a bank.
This surely accounts in part for their present actions.
And the
President too is a young man. Unlike say Lyndon B. Johnson or Jimmy
Carter, when his term ends he won't be able simply to go home. He'll
need a big house in a gated suburb, with high walls and rich friends.
And a good income, too, from book deals and lecture fees. He may be
thinking about that now.
The good news is: it won't save him. For
if and when he ventures out, for the rest of his life, the eyes of all
those, whose hopes he once raised will follow him. The old, the poor,
the jobless, the homeless: their eyes will follow him wherever he goes.
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