What is more prestigious, more higly sought, the object of more media coverage and billions of dollars than being elected to the White House or Capitol Hill? Nothing. And, this bunch is the best America can do? Unbelievable!
On the House side, Speaker Boehner could not even get Congress to come up with a plan that had any chance in the Senate and White House and then, in a fit of frustration, sent everyone home for Christmas. That was surely a huge public relations blunder as Republicans will now get the blame for walking away from a terribly important issue that has the shelf life of a ripe banana.
For his part, President Obama gave away almost nothing, other than lowering proposed new taxes somewhat from a ridiculous $1.6 trillion. He pronounced early on and stuck to it, that Medicare, SS and other entitlement programs, the main sources of the fiscal problem, were off the table. He even had the nerve to keep insisting on a deficit reduction proposal that contained new spending greater than the proposed cuts. In other words, his idea of deficit reductionn is a huge tax increase and a spending increase as well.
Will Rogers once asked, “If stupidity got us into this mess, why can’t it get us out?” Well, Washington has plenty of it and you can see for yourself the results.
As a result, the market is opening down quite a bit.