Grub Stakes

The fights in American politics are no longer over policy. Ideas that don't make sense (a short term debt ceiling vote) and plans that don't add up (the Ryan budget's 20 years of deficits) are proxies and conscripts for the real prizes: power and wealth.

The Republicans have changed the stakes. It's obviously from what is happening in the states. Minnesota shut down. Ohio is eager to lease its 241 mile, government built turn pike without oversight or regulatory approval on tolls (utilities are regulated). And it wants to sell its liquor business and send away $6 billion in revenues over 25 years. These actions are not policy; they are piracy, sanctioned by the state.

The old paradigm only exists in talking points. Robert McNamara's war operation lacked the same passion for the good of the people as does Obama's domestic wing; both slickly substitute the “nation” for our neighbors; both pasted numbers over real people numbed by poverty, joblessness, war, low wages, poor health, bad schools. Look past the administration's policies. The slow pace of change doesn't have the fierce urgency of now.

Even as the President once said he would turn to the people to help in building the future, he has demonstrated he is willing to accumulate more decay. The FAA shut down this week; unfunded, it couldn't collect taxes. By gall, the airlines instantly raised fares to pocket the difference! And where is the connection of this example of transigence and insufferable disrepect to the larger failure of protecting the nation's full faith and credit? The President who speaks of "corporate jet owners" let the corporate airlines off without a peep.

It's instructive to remember pirates of any ilk or flag never jump ship. They jump on board and throw the others over. Without life preservers--because it's not about policy, it's about the spoils.