Keller @ Large: Voters To Blame For Debt Mess
BOSTON (CBS) - It wasn't easy to successfully avoid news of the debt-ceiling crisis in Washington while I was away on vacation; I really had to work at it, but I did.
And after all that effort, turning away from newspaper headlines, and turning down the volume on the radio for everything but the baseball scores, it really didn't make any difference.
I returned this weekend to the same situation I tuned out on ten days ago - hyper-partisans in Washington, most of whom did nothing while this problem built to a climax, dug into ideological trenches of fear and loathing, bent on fighting to the death.
Listen to Jon's commentary:
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The deal that has been reached will enrage both the hard right and hard left, which is a pretty good sign that there's some sense in it, and it will surely kick the can down the road and move mountains to avoid any sign of real political courage.
And one other thing I predict for the analysis of the deal, there will be plenty of finger-pointing and assessments of who "won" or "lost," as if there can be any winners in such a display of mismanagement.
But there will be little or no mention of who's really to blame for this mess.
That would be us, the voters.
We want our taxes unraised and our tax loopholes untouched.
But we also want our benefits and our services and our grant money and our local line-items.
We all want any budgetary pain to be taken out of someone else's hide, please.
And we want to punish and coerce the pols who can't seem to make that math work by passing new laws and constitutional amendments, without acknowledging that it's our own inflexibility and adamancy that makes their task impossible.
Gridlock, chaos, and 11th hour can-kicking?
Of course that's what we're getting.
That's exactly what we ordered.
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
