Irrational exuberance
Holy cow. Has it really been five days since I posted here? The reason is the usual one: I was out of town again, and inevitably that means getting ahead on any number of projects and responsibilities so that I can be reasonably undisturbed while away, and then catching up when I return. But I didn’t realize it had been five days.
Where was I? Facilitating a retreat at a very nice resort just outside Palm Springs. There were about 30 attendees, and to a person they are good people who are actively engaged in their communities. And, so far as I can tell, they are all Republicans. (With the exception of one guy.) Here are the issues I heard about over dinner and discussions: low taxes, a strong economy, a strong military, a smaller government, and personal freedom. My two thoughts about this: 1. Hey — those are my issues! (Along with some others.) 2. Then why remain a Republican? Because as far as I can see, the last eight years have equaled: low taxes (okay, you got that one), a recklessly managed and now dangerously careening economy, a military stretched perilously thin with no strategy for success, a fantastically bloated federal government, and a federal government that demands to know everything about you in the name of security. If these are the things you oppose, why keep supporting the people responsible for it?
I’m speaking mostly with regard to the federal government. Here in California, the ingredients are different: a Legislature that historically overspends, a 30-year-old proposition that drastically limits property taxes, a 2/3 requirement to raise taxes, term limits that ensure that experienced elected officials are forced to move on, an intransigent minority party, and a weak governor with no power over anyone (especially what is nominally his own party). Mix it all together and you get an $11 billion deficit, and a request from that governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to the federal government to please bail us out. And… why not? What’s another $11 billion among friends? Heck, AIG will need another $11 billion just to pay for lunch tomorrow, and GM needs $50 billion just to fill up at the pump.
Tonight my family and I went out to dinner with my brother and sister-in-law, who are visiting from New Jersey. We compared notes about how the economy is doing in our circles, and frankly none of us seems to know. The stories vary so widely that they seem like anecdotal dispatches from a postapocalyptic land. Business seems good over here, bad over there, and uncertain all across the board. I said, “Nobody knows, and nobody knows what to do. When you look at the actions the government is taking every day, you have to conclude that they’re just guessing. They don’t really know what to do.”
So here’s the one thing we can count on: First it will get better (or worse). Then it will get worse (or better). Then the cycle will repeat. It’s just a question of which will come first, better or worse, and how quickly these things will happen.
In the meantime, I’m allowing myself to be irrationally exuberant about at least one thing: evidently, one of President-elect Obama’s priorities is to close Guantanamo Bay. The economy is important. So is the character of the nation.