government

If I were Thomas Paine (which I sometimes think I am) I would say: "These are the times that try men's souls."

If I were Charles Dickens (which I never think I am) I would say: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

And if I were William Butler Yeats (never, ever, never) I would say: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

I am more of the Casey Stengel school of political philosophy, so like that baseball great I say:

"Can't anybody here play this game?"

My father, long dead, spent his working years in tool and die shops in Detroit, an experience from which he crafted a political, economic, and social philosophy of life.

"They're all in it together," he would say. That was the very core of the philosophy.

Were high wages bad because they made prices go up? Were high profits good because they made the stock market go up? Did politicians who complained about how little they were paid mysteriously become millionaires while in office? Did the World Series go seven games?

My feeling continues to grow that somewhere deep in the psyche of the American people there is a screw loose.

We entered the 21st century as the most powerful nation on earth. There was nobody second. We had our problems, certainly, but we also had a budget surplus, a reasonable foreign policy, and a bright future.

At which point the American people, in their wisdom, elected an ignoramus from Texas to lead them. He led them into two wars, a crushing public debt, and a financial crisis of historic proportions.

Libertarians, creationists, birthers, Birchers, flat-taxers, string savers, and tin foil collectors -- all the wonderful groups that make up the tea party's intellectual wing -- came to town waving signs, shouting slogans, and collaring hapless Congresspersons in their dens.

They may not have achieved their goal of shutting down the government, but in the end, they achieved something even more improbable -- they made you feel sorry for Congress. (Makes you kind of miss the Silent Majority doesn't it?)

The Republicans told us what they wanted to do in their "Pledge to America" last year: cut government, slash taxes, and shrink the national debt. But they didn't tell us how they were going to do it. Now they have.

Basically, it involves ripping the heart out of the future and burying it at the intersection of crumbling highways and a falling-down bridge to nowhere.

It's caviar and champagne for the lucky few, macaroni and cheese for the rest of us.