Shades of Custer’s last stand is seen in US fiscal debacle

Of all the pundits who have written about America’s current fiscal mess, Tim Rutten has said it best: “If congressional negotiators fail to resolve their impasse over the federal debt ceiling, we may recall this moment in history as one of the nation’s worst examples of underestimating a result since the morning Custer awoke thinking it might be amusing to go and annoy Sitting Bull” (The Vindicator, May 13).

In fact, the U. S. Congress is lurching toward inexcusable default on paying its bills because many of its members are more focused on political infighting than on doing the people’s business. They have taken rigid stands that ignore reality and propose “solutions” that will just make the crisis worse. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has shown us that his top priorities are to cripple Barack Obama’s presidency and to placate Republican extremists.

Seeking a workable budget deal comes third. House Speaker John Boehner seems unable to stand up against the radicals in his caucus. The report of a blue-ribbon commission that labored long and hard to create a workable compromise sits in a dark corner, gathering dust. Trust and communication among our elected representatives are, tragically, at historic low points just when they are urgently needed.

The Bush recession is abating slowly, with persistent weakness in jobs and housing. The progressive aging of our population is causing the long-predicted overload of Medicare and Social Security. The cost of the nation’s multiple wars in the Mideast remains staggering. And now the deadline for increasing the statutory limit on the national debt is passing with no evidence that the Tea-Party types will back away from their inane proposal to “solve” that problem by imposing draconian cuts in funding for almost everything except national defense – all this without imposing the carefully targeted tax increases that every serious student of the problem knows are unavoidable.

Americans must finally face the hard truth: failing to pay our nation’s bills because of the statutory debt limit may destroy our reputation as the world’s most rock-solid economy. This will lead foreign nations and private investors to expect significantly higher interest rates on U. S. government securities, which could have catastrophic effects on our economy. Let us hope that people on the far right will come to understand how serious this crisis is and back off from their demands.

That will be very difficult to achieve, though, because they have made such harsh “no-new-taxes” demands that they will lose face if they relent. However, the fallout from failure to move forward could make Custer’s Little Big Horn debacle seem like child’s play.

Robert D. Gillette, Poland