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Originally Posted by Pete F.
People keep trying to frame the current legislative dysfunction as if Manchin and Sinema are budget-hawks, which is nonsense.
This is about the wealthy maintaining a stranglehold on government by buying and selling representatives.
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There is no strangling. Politicians don't have to take the money. They are not forced to take the money. They are not being strangled if they don't take the money. They are corrupt. They care more about themselves and their political and financial future than about you or the American People.
Whatever metaphorical strangling is going on, it is mutual. If big money interests want to maintain their advantage, they have to depend on big government to create the regulatory environment necessary to enable that advantage. If they want that advantage, they have to pay the political Mafia to get it and keep it.
In a so called Democracy, the government should have a symbiotic relationship with "the people." Not with special interests who buy elected officials and who depend on their corruption. Which is one of the reasons democracies basically fail in living up to what "democracy" is for.
And this system of a political mafia feeding off of the big money that it makes possible and which fills its greedy pockets exists on all sides of the political isle. Which is why some consider the U.S. government to be a fascistic oligarchy.
Right now the big money goes more to the Dems. Other times, to the Repubs. I suspect it goes on as well in Western Europe which you think so highly of.
These various trillions of dollars spending bills are full of bull$hit that goes to special interests in the name of "values." As Pelosi said, "let’s not talk about numbers and dollars. Let’s talk about values.” Yeah, well it doesn't take economic and political geniuses to see whose values, especially cash values, are being realized. Like the series of so called infrastructure bills in the past 10 years that had more BS pork than infrastructure. Everybody knows this is happening.
But it's not going to stop until some crisis forces it. I don't know if Mitch's ploy is purely political or what, but I would love to see it happen. I would love to see the idiotic, destructive wasting and overspending of the people's money come to a screeching halt. We've been forced into a year of social and financial austerity because of the pandemic, with more to come. If that can defeat the virus, we can get through the catastrophe of a well deserved government default, and we can, at least for another while, defeat government fiscal irresponsibility