Debt Ceiling Aftermath: Americans are Better Informed on Debt, & Political Connivance and Incompetence

Democracy and Power 107:  Counting votes

Successful … politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies.
– Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), American Journalist and Author

Debt Ceiling Aftermath:  Americans are Better Informed on Debt,  & Political Connivance and Incompetence 

Unfortunately, ObamaCare was not defunded or delayed.  However,  the hype and hyperbole over failure to extend the debt ceiling has one positive result.  More and more citizens sense that America has a serious debt problem.  Further, our political establishment lead by Obama, Reid, McConnell, Pelosi and Boehner are NOT systematically and honestly seeking solutions.  

Americans have been exposed to our politics as usual, which is merely an outgrowth of adolescent student council one-up-ims.  Fortunately, Americans are not impressed.  The most recent Rasmussen poll is very instructive:

  • 78% of the voters would throw out the entire Congress and start over.
  • Only 8% said to keep Congress as is. 
  • Of course, if put to a vote, most Senators and Members of Congress would be re-elected. 

However, Americans have been exposed to shrill political pettiness and a lack of serious solutions to reduce America’s dangerous debt.

More importantly, 63% of Americans polled favor thoughtful cuts to all government programs, and only 24% oppose these cuts.  This is very important.  Americans sense the need to reduce spending, which is essential to reducing our debt.

Thus, after  all the drama and hype, America is better informed on debt and politics.  Our expanded means of communication allows more and more Americans to experience and know what only a few people observed in the life-time of Walter Lippmann, which is:

Successful … politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies.

Today, Lippmann’s insights are being realized by more and more Americans.  For those of us seeking a small, competent and honest government, our duty is to  build upon America’s expanding knowledge of the problem and offer solutions.  Reduced spending must be achieved, including restructuring a medical system that has been wasteful and unfair since World War II.  

Only, We the People can force, influence, coerce – take your choice – politicians to acknowledge our dangerous debt, and seriously seek solutions.