Five Minutes

That's all it'd take to get everything done. Mitch McConnell has announced that, after allowing a piddling 60 billion or so in annual increased tax revenue (while agreeing to a deal that raised the projected debt by four trillion bucks), he's done talking about taxes. Now, he says, it's all about cutting spending. So "balance," to him, is allowing 60 billion in increased revenue and doing the rest by, presumably, cutting spending by the remaining 900 billion of our deficit. Whadda guy.

So, fine. Let's just get this thing over with: Ds announce the amount they want in new revenue, the amount they want to cut in defense spending, and their bottom-line acceptable reductions in Medicare and Social Security. Rs do the same. Then we split the damn difference. Let 'em go back on break and not show up again until the next budget is due. (And if we don't pay them while they're gone, we'll have less of a deficit to fix.)

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Cantor Can't

And speaking of the economy, to no one's surprise Eric Cantor has bolted from the "bipartisan" "negotiations" on the "budget." Damn Democrats want to raise a little revenue to pay for our basic needs. Republicans say no deal to that: they simply don't care about anything but tax cuts for the wealthy. I don't see how anyone can argue with that statement. I wonder how he'd explain what was wrong with tax rates before Bush got hold of our thriving economy.

I've said it before: it's obvious that tax rates that are too high would destroy the economy. Taking the extreme case of 100%, we'd have full agreement across the board. Likewise rates of 0% (although I'm certain there are teabaggers who'd be perfectly happy to watch the country crumble around them as long as they had theirs...

Anyhow, we can all agree it's a matter of finding a zone in which there's enough revenue to do what's needed, and enough incentive for people to work and produce stuff. It's obvious to everyone except the ideologically blind that we're not in the zone. Keeping taxes where they are -- forget about the further cuts teabaggRs want -- it's apparent that the sort of cuts to achieve balance will rob us of our future, as infrastructure crumbles, education continues its decline, research goes unfunded, and the environment is left to putrefy. It's happening already, and the Rs are barely into their plot plan.

So it's a choice. If these guys, the teabaggRs, have their way, we'll see the end of everything we need as a country, other than fur-lined coffers for the very few. I've not seen any credible breakdown of how we pay for the aforementioned basics if Rs hold sway; in fact, it's clear they don't want to pay for those things. Or, their god forbid, such fluff as medicaid, WIC programs, or any other ways to help their fellow citizens.

Of course, we could elect people who'd like to see the government function, who value the country enough to pay for its needs. It's not as if anyone is talking about going back to the tax rates we had under Ronald Reagan, after all. Patriotism isn't about playing dress-up. It's about doing the hard stuff that democracy demands. Teabaggers, and the people they've elected, are the furthest thing from patriots that anyone could imagine. It's selfishness and nothing more. (Okay, misinformed stupidity, too. I'll give you that.)

Against that statement there's simply no argument to be made.

[I've read speculation that the walkout is a defacto recognition that tax hikes are, in fact, inevitably necessary, and that Cantor (and Kyl) simply don't have the balls to be the ones to agree. They're kicking it up to Boehner and McConnell. Could be, I suppose. If it's true, and it happens, I'll take back some of what I said. About teabaggRs; but not about teabaggers.]

[On the other hand, it looks like it ain't gonna happen. My bad. Boehner might rise to the occasion? What was I thinking?]

We're past the point of no return. Like the man said, the Republican party is now made up of and supported by idiots. We're screwed. Totally and completely screwed. If the unlikeliest of outcomes transpired in 2012, and people woke up, made a choice for the future of the country, and Ds regained control of both houses -- even then, it might well be too late.

What It's Really About

This is what happens when ideology -- religious ideology -- trumps reason and fact:

Officials said that Democrats had made concessions on both money and policy, and had moved toward the position of House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio on the overall level of spending, agreeing to $37 billion in cuts, with less of it coming from the Pentagon than Democrats had initially sought.

Democratic officials familiar with the negotiations said that proposed restrictions on money for Planned Parenthood remained the chief sticking point, and that attempts to resolve the disagreement through alternatives like allowing a separate floor vote on the issue had not been successful. Democrats said they were told by the Republicans that the votes of anti-abortion social conservatives would be needed to move any budget measure through the House.

So, teabaggRs are willing to shut down the government to advance a purely social agenda. Not fiscal. Social. Moreover, Planned Parenthood is about far more than abortion; it's a major source of health care for women in need of it. Abortion not only doesn't make for the bulk of its work, no federal money goes to abortion services it provides. (Okay, I agree that sort of argument is silly, no matter who makes it: you give me ten bucks and tell me not to spend it on candy, I can hand the guy at 7-11 a different sawbuck. But everyone rolls that way, right? Federal money to religious schools, e.g.)

As I said earlier today, Ds -- because it's who they are -- have already moved very far to the right on this. Too far, since it's all symbolism anyway: the real money is elsewhere. And until there's agreement that we need to increase revenues as well as making reasonable cuts, we're still headed toward slow ruination. But I'm betting they, the Ds, will move even further, eventually crossing even this, this mean-spirited (because it's religious-based and fact-averse) and very hurtful line in the sand.