Hostage Taking, Extortion, Brinksmanship, No Negotiating – I’m Looking for Leadership

            The President just held a news conference where he repeated over and over that he will not negotiate over the government shutdown or over the soon-to-be-here debt ceiling.  He provided the beacon of leadership these difficult times demand.  He said he will not be held hostage, not be extorted and he certainly will not negotiate.  Yes, that is just the kind of leadership we need at this difficult time.

While that beautiful display of non-leadership was taking place, Senator McCain stood on the Senate floor and pleaded for common ground with the Democrats.  He mentioned two specific examples where the Rs and the Ds could easily reach agreement: 1) eliminating the health device tax, and 2) moving Congress to the same health care plan that Obamacare is providing to ordinary Americans.  Senator McCain is noble for demonstrating leadership at this time.  It is obvious that the Minority Leader, Senator McConnell, cannot lead because he is in a serious primary election; with the Tea Party looking to unseat him.  The damn Tea Party has ruined America.  It has caused so much havoc that a good man like Senator McConnell cannot lead as he could and would - if he was not threatened by a bunch of barbarians that do not understand that policy making is all about compromise.

Speaker Boehner is also unable to lead due to the Tea Party shenanigans.  At a time when the Tea Party has created a crisis out of thin air – it has also handcuffed the leaders that might help calm the storm.  Thank you Senator McCain – I am looking for Leadership.

I am not letting the Democrats off the hook either.  They are all dutifully following the President’s lead and demanding that there be NO negotiations.  I get it, the Democrats want to destroy the Tea Party and they think this is their chance to make that happen.  I support the Democrats in trying to rid us of the Ted Cruzes of the world – but not through these means.  Please do not put the world economy on a respirator just to starve the Tea Party of oxygen.  In this situation, it is not okay to do the wrong thing for the right reason.

The budget has been cut by the Sequestration to levels that both parties have said would be untenable.  The Democrats have agreed to a continuing resolution (a budget) that would cut deeper than Sequestration.  Even with these spending cuts agreed to by the Democrats, the Republicans decided they wanted something else – to once again attempt to overturn the Affordable Care Act.  PLEAE, can we get over it?  The Democrats have won the battle over health care.  What the Republicans are doing right now is ridiculous. 

Once they got wind of the fact that Americans are tired of health care battles, the Republicans decided that all they want is to negotiate.  They do not know what they want to negotiate for - but they want to negotiate.  Unfortunately, the President has stated that all he wants is NOT to negotiate.

Here we are: the Republicans want to negotiate but do not know what they want to negotiate for - and the Democrats just do not want to negotiate.  Can somebody please just negotiate about whether or not anybody should negotiate?  This is insanity.

The reason that we are having a sluggish recovery is because of uncertainty.  The Affordable Care Act is going to have significant impact on our economy.  However, the never-ending fight over its very existence has left businesses wondering if it will ever become reality.  President Obama’s decision to delay its implementation for businesses by one year was a big mistake.  It has further befuddled businesses.  They are not sure it will ever become reality.  With that uncertainty, businesses are holding back on hiring people, firing people and/or making investments.  They know that the Affordable Care Act is going to impact the economy but they do not know how big the impact will be – or even if it will be a positive or negative impact (but most are assuming negatively).  Representative Pelosi so brilliantly stated that “we have to pass the bill before we can know what is in it.”   Now, businesses have to see it implemented before they can assess its impact.  Until it is implemented we will continue to live in a period of uncertainty.

When businesses thought that the Affordable Care Act was going to become a reality, they were starting to do things that are not great for the economy.  Several announced plans to move their full-time employees to twenty-nine hours per week so that they would not have to provide health benefits.  UPS announced that it will no longer provide health care benefits to family members of their employees.  Walgreens announced that it is no longer going to provide health care benefits at all.  When a pharmacy stops providing health care – something is wrong.  These announcements are not good news for the economy – let alone for Joe the plumber.  However, they loudly demonstrate that the Affordable Care Act is going to have significant impact on businesses, on working Americans, and on our economy.

The implementation of the Affordable Care Act may cause some short-term pain but delaying it will only make the short-term pain longer in duration.  It will not alleviate the pain.  The uncertainty that Washington continues to stir up is the cause of our sluggish economic recovery (and I believe that the recovery may now be over).  The lack of leadership is the cause of our uncertainty and the Tea Party is the cause of our lack of leadership.  You see, leadership is the ability to coalesce people around a common goal and to inspire people to work together towards achieving that goal.  The Tea Party is good at coalescing people around a burning-at-the-stake for the horrendous act of compromising.

Today our goal is to determine if we want to negotiate or not negotiate.  Thank you Mr. President for your impassioned leadership around this noble goal.  Thank you also for extending the olive branch of a possible six-week cooling off period.  That is just what we need, another six-week delay.  Let’s be honest – in six weeks we will be right back here again.  This slow-drip, kick-the-can-down-the-road drill is Chinese torture treatment.

To my readers: I cannot believe you made it to this paragraph.  The above rambling collection of thoughts was a grumpy old man’s therapeutic release of frustration over the state of our nation.  But if you made it this far – you must have that same frustration.  Count on the six-week deal being done before the end of the week.  Oh, be sure not to plan any visits to a national park in six weeks – they most likely will be closed again.  Although our leaders create nothing but uncertainty about our future – they are very predictable with regard to their incompetence.

Will a Democrat work with Senator McCain to get a deal done – PLEASE?