The reality of denial
The British General Staff's battle map.
Last month the New York City Council approved a developer’s proposal to erect an 18-story apartment tower on the East River in Brooklyn, just east of the Brooklyn Bridge. The project is controversial not only because it would mar the view of the great bridge, but also because it would occupy one of the most significant sites in American history.
The site is little known; it marks a retreat.
At this very point on the night of Aug. 29, 1776, and during the foggy early morning hours of the next day, Gen. George Washington quietly evacuated 9,000 troops — most of his newly formed Continental Army — across the river to Manhattan, escaping to fight another day.
The army had been badly mauled by the British in the Battle of Brooklyn and was almost surrounded. Had winds not been against them, British warships in the New York harbor would have sailed up this tidal estuary to close the trap. Washington and his army would have been captured, almost before the ink was dry on the Declaration of Independence whose signing we celebrate this weekend.
Washington and his commanders might well have been hanged, along with the signers of the Declaration. History tells us they were aware of the risk; as Benjamin Franklin may or may not have told his fellow signers, “We must all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately.”
Great undertakings require great risk and demand much sacrifice. And sometimes a retrenchment. It’s a lesson that has been muddied over the last 233 years.
It should be recalled that even members of the “Greatest Generation” that fought and won World War II put such sacrifice off as long as they could. Similarly, we knew of the atrocities of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the threat posed by al-Qaida long before Sept. 11, 2001. As early as 2003, Warren Buffett was warning that trading in financial derivatives was a “time bomb” ticking under the economy.
Americans are an optimistic people, an admirable trait. Why sacrifice if you don’t have to? But when that optimism obscures a hard-eyed view of reality, catastrophe may await. Consider the following:
- Ten days ago, 212 members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted against the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, the so-called “cap-and-trade” bill that aims to cut the nation’s production of greenhouse gases by 17 percent in the next 10 years and 83 percent by 2050. Global warming is a reality; no amount of industry-funded studies to the contrary (“Sunspots!”) can overcome that reality. Fixing it, if that’s still possible, will require significant financial and lifestyle sacrifices.
- President Barack Obama’s health care reform bill also portends great cost and sacrifice to many Americans. Insurance and drug companies worry about the loss of business. Doctors worry about the loss of income. Taxpayers worry about the cost, never mind that the cost of doing nothing may be even higher.
- Last month the Congressional Budget Office released a long-term forecast that says “the federal budget is on an unsustainable path — meaning that the federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run.” The CBO says that at current tax and spending rates, in 14 years the national debt will be bigger than the entire American economy. Ninety percent of the increase can be atrributed to rising spending on Medicare and Medicaid. Much of the rest can be laid at the feet of rising costs for Social Security.
Mr. Obama has been accused of taking on too many problems at the same time. Circumstances forced him to first address the collapse of the financial markets. Along with keeping the nation secure, that might have been enough for any president.
But Mr. Obama chose to move on global warming and health care reform because he recognizes that neither can wait. Both are existential threats to the American way of life.
He has chosen to try to fund them on a “pay-as-you-go” basis, realizing that putting them on the national credit card — as his predecessor did with the Iraq war and the Medicaid prescription drug plan — is not an option. The CBO says that the federal budget will be $9.3 trillion in the red over the next 10 years.
The nation can’t keep borrowing from future economic growth to pay for things it needs today. Given last week’s troubling unemployment numbers, it may need another jolt of stimulus spending, ideally for infrastructure projects that will last 30 years.
Borrowing to keep a car running so you can keep a job is one thing. Borrowing for groceries and gasoline is quite another, unless you can be sure your income is going to keep growing faster than interest costs.
America is devoting ever more of its future income to interest on debt for what it consumes today, borrowing from foreign governments, most notably China’s. At some point U.S. Treasuries stop looking secure.
The result: More recession, inflation and unemployment, even as baby boomers become eligible for Medicare and Social Security, increasing the demand for more spending and driving more debt and God help any politician who votes to decrease benefits.
Americans, including too many of their leaders in Congress, are refusing to accept reality in many forms: global warming, the unsustainability and unfairness of the existing health care system, the notion that we can buy weapons and highways and bridges we don’t need instead of investing in military and transit programs we do, the end of an era of excess.
Pull any of these strings and you find someone’s self interest at the end: members worried about re-election; industry and business worried about profit; constituents worried about their favorite federal program. Nobody wants to hear about sacrifice for the common good. Nobody wants to hear about retrenchment.
It may be that America now is dominated by what the Brits call the “I’m all right, Jack” philosophy: I’ve got mine, and that’s what matters.
It may be that our political system, fueled as it is by huge campaign contributions and lobbying from special interests, no longer is capable of enacting laws for the common good. The climate change bill, after all, passed only after dozens of breaks were inserted for special interests. The health care reform debate is dominated by the effect it would have on doctors, private insurers and pharmaceutical companies.
Mr. Obama may have to make the same case to the country that Washington made to his army before the Battle of Brooklyn:
I get a kick out of the editorial hacks at the PD. You can’t even run your own newspaper (the ever-downward spiral in circulation and the river of red ink bear this out) but you think you can control the weather. Typical liberal extremists.
This is one of the best editorials I have read in a while. I am amazed that those who are so opposed to addressing the deadly serious challenges that we face (and I mean those challenges that can not be readily dispatched with macho means such as military action) will absolutely refuse to acknowledge the facts that have been presented, such as global warming, already underway, or a health care system that needlessly drains scarce financial resources. They refuse to accept these things because partisan hacks find it profitable, for both monetary and egotistical reasons, to bloviate against it.
I have noticed that a frequent contributor to this site tags himself (or herself) as “amazed by the lunacy”. Well so am I, although I suspect that the party in question is seeing some different sort of lunacy then yours truly.
That sick self-centered attitude “I’m all right, Jack” philosophy: I’ve got mine, and that’s what matters, many, many of these ones will be hearing a new song within their sick little hearts soon enough.
All their hunkys may be dory now, but they certainly will not be so hunky-dory for too much longer.
The latest news on the economy shows a recovery is not in sight, so it’s time for the Obama-ites to provide a diversion for the President and his policies. Time for supporters, including the Post, to repeat the hysterics that proclaim the world will come to an end if we don’t act immediately and without debate on issues like energy and healthcare. House Democrats pushed the vote on the so-called ”cap and trade” bill without bothering to read, much less debate, all the provisions. These same supporters counter critics by continuing to press the lie that man-made ”climate change” is a settled issue, and that anyone who disagrees is a corporate shill.
Meanwhile, Obama continues his statements with an expiration date. In addressing the American Medical Association re his health care initiative, the President promised doctors that patients would not lose their private health insurance or choice of physician, only to issue a ”clarification” a few days later that reversed his pledge.
The Obama Administration is buryiny the US economy in debt in order to advance its social agenda, and the Post apparently approves as it uses hyperbole, fabrication, and outright lies to defend this asault on the American taxpayer. How ironic that the Post uses the memory of George Washington, the man who could not tell a lie, to join in advancing the agenda of Barack Obama, who cannot tell the truth.
Your factless statement that global warming exists, notwithstanding, you raise a good point. The problem is instead of a “pay as you go” system of paying for his proposals, he demands a “you pay as I go” policy. The problem with America is that only some are asked to sacrifice. Fifty percent of our country pay no Federal Taxes. Please don’t tell me they pay other taxes, so do the members of the productive fifty-percent. Until everyone is asked to put skin in the game, we will continue toward the abyss.
The country is broken and instead of worrying about beoming competitive again, we handcuff ourselves with things like talk of higher taxes, irresponsible printing of money, cap and tax, affirmative action and a private police force (trial lawyers) that always wants its piece of any productive pie. I hear rational, successful people debating whether they should move to Uruguay or New Zealand. You hear of people moving out of cash and buying gold with 100% of their assets. Seniors are rushing to get needed surgery before they fear Obama draws an aribtrary line between them and their hip replacement. And we keep electing the same hogs at the trough and their children.
Obama will never be able to bring this country together while he tries to change the very fiber of our economic system. We have a perfectly good and proven system to address economic growth: capitalism. As long as the man calling for sacrifice demands it for a move to socialism, his cries will fall on deaf ears.
We have drastically reduced emissions over the past several decades, and done so without crippling our economy. Technological advances and modest regulatory steps have resulted in cleaner air and water everywhere. The assertion of an emergency, followed by the demand for drastic measures that would cripple our economy, can’t be motivated solely by the desire to save the world. Instead, the underlying motive must be a hatred of capitalism in general, and of our particular implementation of it.
Those who make this assertion, as we see in this editorial, accuse those of us who oppose their drastic and unneeded measures as selfish. Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but I can tell you for an absolute fact that I recycle more than the rest of my block combined. I drive a small car, and drive as little as possible. I walk or bicycle whenever I can, and since I live in an urban, walkable community, that is often.
The man who is the Post-Dispatch’s hero promised to save our economy, at the price of a trillion dollars. We’ve got the trillion dollar bill, and the economy hasn’t changed a bit. Ultimately, it will recover, not because of this reckless federal spending, but in spite of it. They have seized control of the American automobile industry, and achieved nothing, not even a brief reprieve for their supporters in the UAW. Still, your blind, foolish pontificators would hand to these same administrators control of our healthcare system, and the strings of an energy regulatory system that would cripple every sector of our economy. Have another donut, gentlemen.
Well said.
Following 9/11 the last administration was able to get whatever it wanted, and look where it has gotten us. Under unrestricted capitalism our tax dollars are going to pay for no bid contracts to Cheney’s old buddies, who have become mega-rich by giving our soldiers poisoned water, spoiled food, inadequate equipment and showers that electrocute them because of bad wiring.
Have you checked your pension or 401k accounts lately? Under unrestricted captialism banks have been able to make risky home loans and pawn them off to investment firms who sell them to pension funds or mutual funds. So even if you were not a risk-taking investor you may have ended up getting screwed.
The only protection citizens and our nation have from unbridled greed is oversight by our elected officials.
Ooops! You forgot the part about the Community Reinvestment Act
… and the part about Franklin Raines and Chris Dodd and Barney Frank
… and how the Democratic leaders ensured the risky loans would become
government-guaranteed loans by being running them through Fannie & Freddie.
You want oversight by our elected officials? Sleep tight — Chairmen Dodd
and Frank remain on duty.
I did not say the Dems are innocent - read Matt Taibbi’s article on Goldman,Sachs in Rolling Stone. My response was geared toward those comments that blasted the “liberal extremeists” or “Obama-ites”. Their conservative reps had a chance to make things work, to set things “right” and it didn’t happen.
The point of the op-ed is that everyone is in it for themselves. Those in power may rationalize that they are doing things for the good of the economy or for the good of the country, but somehow their decisions make them richer and (this is a key part of the equation) everyone else poorer. Those of us who are not elected officials or part of the corporate powers struggle to keep what benefits we have. Meanwhile our country’s debt to China keeps growing and businesses keep moving production out of the very country that allowed them to become rich in the first place. How does that make us a stronger nation?
I read that article and laughed out loud I’ve had an account at Goldman for years and they are so smart they missed both the real estate and credit meltdowns. While Goldman tries to play the angles, the economy is bigger than all the big bulge firms combined and always rules. If you think Goldman is playing an unfair game for its clients’ advantage, nothing is stopping you from opening an account there.
No one here has proposed unfettered capialism. Sensible regulation is always a good idea. It is when regulation is subject to change from administration to administration for social engineering that we get in trouble.