"Rise above the crowds and wave through the toxic clouds..."

Congress resumes this week, and "we the people" will have to slog through re-heated leftovers of bipartisan politics for a short time.   That's all well and good I suppose, as there are plenty of leftovers after the holidays, and in the time of austerity, they shouldn't go to waste.  But it is sort of predictable, scripted and uninspired.

Right out of the gate, the House will submit a bill to repeal the Healthcare legislation.  You might wonder if there heart is really in it.  But they are committed despite two key contradictory realities:
            1) The political mandate of the November election prioritized economic growth over healthcare repeal and
            2) It will not survive the Senate or a Presidential veto.  

But they have to do it.  They have thrown the gauntlet and would only look like cowards if they don't put up.  It is not inspired or revolutionary politics but simply scripted, like the Hills or that show about Operation Repo.  Sadly Healthcare reform actually conflicts with the Republican's "Reduce Spending" mantra, as it would add $375 billion to the deficit between 2012 and 2021 (according to the CBO).  But they cannot pull back now.  "Obamacare" has such a catchy ring to it, and given that the GOP is not known for it's creativity they have to milk this for all it is worth, while muttering in there beer and quietly contemplating what Quentin Tarantino's granddaddy says:

 "The less a man makes declarative statements,                  
the less apt he is to look foolish in retrospect."

The Republicans have an opportunity to put on the big-boy (and girl) pants and champion bi-partisan efforts to solve the countries woes.  But they won't do that, because they are presently all slack-eyed and atavistically kicking the Democratic Party.  Like too many of us, they view this as a "zero sum" game.  We're right, you're wrong.  (Forget the people that are really losing).   The Democrats aren't much better.  You can predict that they will whine, and complain, but never really get angry enough to fight venom with venom.  In the end those of us leaning left will smirk and laugh at the back of the class with John Stewart and feign an aloof, "I'm too cool for school" hipness.  The right will laugh at the courser humor offered by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, the veritable bullies of the classroom.   Of course people will still be out of work, and corporations will still sit on a trillion dollars worth of capital waiting for the right business climate.  And if Fox news and the Republicans can convince the nation that all we need to do is wait two more years and elect a Republican president, then they will be sitting pretty.  But folks will still be out of work. 

The real priority wanted by the American people is economic stimulus.  Not to appear completely obtuse to the needs of the populace, they are repackaging Heath-care Reform as a "job killer".  (Political discourse is so visceral these days).  The conveniently ignore that accessibility to health care will inspire entrepreneurialism, and jobs.  So they twisting their agenda to align with the woes that the electorate really wants to address.  If the electorate's top priority was the threat of extra-terrestrial visitors, the Republican would claim that Obamacare was secretly sending little green men open invitations to camp out on the South Lawn.  But here is where the Republican rhetoric starts to run headlong into fact.  While the country was stalling, and the Republican kept popping the clutch, they could blame the Democrats.  As the country starts moving again, they cannot cry Chicken Little and maintain credibility.

 When the unemployment rate decreases, and the healthcare bill is still intact, they will drop the issue entirely: Like they have with the World Trade Center mosque issue.  One moment it is a terrorist camp next it is simply an Islamic Spa off

Chambers Street

and everyone went home happy.

Luckily, this is where empiricism comes in.  And perhaps we can to see something improvised and off-script. 

Wall Street Investors (for all their short-comings) won't let Corporate America sit on that trillion dollars forever.  They will either force them to start buying other companies (which might mean more job-loss) or produce more products (build more factories-construction jobs), increase output (sales jobs), etc, etc.

And let's be honest, people like making money, as opposed to losing money (which was sooo 2008) or just flat lining money (which was basically 2009 and 2010 rounding out the "lost decade").  So folks want to start making money, and the economic climate for 2011 will encourage that.   Growth will be up, and the upper and middle class will feel some relief.   Both parties will claim credit for the changes, in their snarky, myopic ways (but in our hearts we will know that change came at the expense and efforts of everyday Americans).

Empiricism, as Bill Clinton extolled in the election, will eventually carry the day.  When it does, let's hope that skewed perspectives of the last few years hasn't permanently damaged our ability to read fact for fact, and accomplishment for accomplishment: Though I fear that it has. 

And let us not forget that any pain and any progress was born on the backs of the many, many good people who lost their jobs, endure flat-lined salaries, put up with miserable jobs or bosses due to lack of options, lost their homes, their savings, the education opportunities for their children, and the basic option to dream a little American dream.   People who least can afford to play a "zero sum" game.

But most likely we will.  Because it's just a bummer to dwell on that.  And it makes for a poor script.