So a longtime Republican Congressman from Florida, Bill Young, passed away last week and will be buried Thursday. He was a Republican in Florida before there was Republicans in Florida. He was first elected in 1972 and was the longest serving member of the Republican House Caucus. He was 82 years old. The House of Representatives will not be in session on Thursday so that members can attend his funeral.
Now, I hesitated in writing this, because when anyone dies, their families are due the upmost deference, sympathy and respect. But...
This is the committee formed as part of the deal to re-open the government and avoid the debt ceiling. It isn't much of a giveaway, as Conference Committees are the usual order of business in Congress after budgets have passed the House and Senate. This Conference Committee -- as would others -- is meant to negotiate a single budget from the two that have passed. Senator Chris Coons is on this committee as a result of his being on the Senate Budget Committee.
The governor’s claim to have fixed the state’s budget is fraudulent. New Jersey’s credit rating has dropped during his term, reflecting Wall Street’s judgment that he has dug the hole even deeper. He has no plan to finance transit projects and open space purchases now that he has nearly drained the dedicated funds he inherited from Gov. Jon Corzine.
Since the late 1960s, America has seen the growth of what the late Donald Warren in a 1976 book The Radical Center called “middle American radicalism.” It’s anti-establishment, anti-Washington, anti-big business and anti-labor; it’s pro-free market. It’s also prone to scapegoating immigrants and minorities. It’s a species of right-wing populism. It ebbed during the Reagan years, but began to emerge again under the patrician George H.W. Bush and found expression in support for Ross Perot and for Pat Buchanan with his “peasants with pitchforks.” And it undergirded the Republican takeovers of Congress in 1994. It ebbed during George W. Bush’s war on terror, but has re-emerged with a vengeance in the wake of the Great Recession, Obama’s election and expansion of government, and continuing economic stagnation.
This monster, like a zombie virus, is eating the Republican Party alive and tearing the diverse, and often conflicting coalitions therein apart.
Like many of you and a few visionaries around the country, I'm sure trying to figure out how we change the interlocked political and economic systems which brought us to this place none of us like. You know, Gridlock and Crisis City, exemplified by last weeks nightmare. These systems served us reasonably well early on in our nation, but clearly, in their present forms, they've outlived their usefulness.
Remember Dylan Ratigan? He delivered epic rants on the Bush bailout and the too big to fail fiasco on MSNBC and then abruptly left. He reemerged with a hydroponic farm venture in California. Quite a change from a really good career in finance journalism, including with Bloomberg, NBC and MSNBC. I loved his show and hated to see him go.
I regard him as one of the visionaries I want to listen to in search of solutions to the current wheel spinning we are doing. I don't know if I really agree with him, or not. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around some of his concepts. I am particularly uncomfortable with his critique of the role our two main political parties play in getting us where we are right now. He thinks parties ought to go away, replaced by a sort of direct democracy model. While often critical of my Democrats, I still cling to the belief we offer the best way out of this bad dream.
But let me summarize some of his thinking for your perusal. If you want to go deeper, go to his web site. Just Google his name.
He sees an American Renaissance bubbling up from the grassroots.
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