Monday, June 27, 2011

Dying From "Death-by-Polling"

America is dying from "death-by-polling," as manifested in the latest poll showing that 67% of likely voters oppose raising America's debt ceiling. Of course, none of these people could tell you or me exactly what it means to raise the debt ceiling, not even if their life depended on it. These are the same two-thirds of the population who can't balance their own check book, and who thought that sub prime loans were a good idea. We're not talking, here, about intellectually informed financial geniuses. Nevertheless, their opinions seem to matter in this country. So here's what needs to happen, because it's universally true that people only believe what they discover for themselves.

Washington needs to let the country go into default to show the voters what a bankrupt nation actually looks like. Let voters discover economic reality for themselves. Let the geezers (this group includes me) go a few months without their Social Security check. Furlough all the air traffic controllers and TSA screeners to keep all the planes on the ground. Close the VA hospitals, and move the war casualty patients into the empty airports where they can fend for themselves like some kind of third world refugees. This seems to be the kind of America that the so-called fiscally conservative voters want. Either that, or they really and truly believe that tax money can just be cultivated to grow on trees.

Lets just hope that the grown-ups (if there are any left) in Washington don't take polling results seriously.

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