Cerise is away on business this weekend, so instead of going out on the town yesterday evening, I worked late, had dinner at the Willard and stopped by the Capital Grille afterward. There, I spied Hilton, a Republican congressional staffer who works for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, known to most Americans as the Super Committee. He was nursing a draft beer and chatting with a woman I also recognized – she’s a reporter for the Washington Post.
“Hey, Collins!” Hilton hailed me as I passed by. “Have a seat!”
“Sure,” I replied as I sat down. “How are things going on the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction?”
“Exactly why I need your company,” Hilton explained with a wink. “This lady here is a reporter for the Washington Post, who just said she wants to speak with me ‘off the record.’ So, I figure if we’re going to do that, the first thing I need is the presence of a credible witness, to make sure what I say doesn’t actually end up on the front page.”
“Can’t disagree with your logic,” I commented.
“Hey, Collins!” I turned toward a voice I recognized – it was Murphy, a Democratic congressional staffer who works for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. “What are you three up to here, anyhow?” He surveyed the situation with a sly smile, cocktail in hand. “Feeding your side of the story to the press on the eve of the deadline, perhaps?” Murphy challenged Hilton, as he eyed the Washington Post reporter.
“Just a friendly chat,” Hilton dissembled as Murphy took a place next to the reporter.
“I’ll bet,” Murphy chuckled. “Let me guess – you were talking about the Super Committee.”
“Ah, well, yeah,” Hilton admitted, “of course we were. What else would we be talking about?”
“These guys,” Murphy declared with a sad shake of his head, “the Republicans – they’re more interested in getting Barack Obama out of the White House than they are in saving the American economy.”
“Ha!” Hilton snorted derisively. “The Democrats care more about getting back control of the House of Representatives than they do about the economic future of America’s children!”
“All we Democrats want to do,” Murphy insisted, “is share the necessary sacrifices. If a family has a problem, like if Grandma needs a titanium hip or something like that, you don’t excuse Uncle Bill, who’s an investment banker on Wall Street and lean on Uncle Joe who works in the plumbing department at Home Depot, to pay for it.”
“Pure poppycock,” Hilton protested. “The Democrats want a trillion dollar tax increase during a recession.”
“No,” Murphy shot back, “the Republicans want a three trillion dollar spending reduction during a recession.”
“Gee whiz,” I interjected. “Didn’t the Great Recession end in the third quarter of 2010? That’s what all the economists said.”
“Well, okay, academically speaking, yeah,” Murphy acknowledged.
“Theoretically, that’s true,” Hilton concurred. “Economically speaking, it’s over.”
“But politically,” Murphy clarified, “it’s still going on.”
“And therefore,” Hilton concluded, “we can still argue about it, and the last thing you want to do is raise taxes on the job-creators during a recession. The top one percent pay twenty-nine percent of their income in taxes, and on average, the millionaires and billionaires already pay ninety-six percent of total income taxes.”
“On what planet?” Murphy challenged. “See? The Republican just go around making stuff up! Reality means nothing to them! Didn’t anybody ever tell them that being entitled to your own set of opinions doesn’t mean you’re also entitled to your own set of facts?”
“Isn’t the Super Committee deadline this Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving?” I asked. “And isn’t it supposed to deliver a bill to Congress on Monday, the day after tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Hilton shrugged. “So?”
“So,” I pressed, “listening to you two, it certainly doesn’t seem as if the Super Committee is going to meet those deadlines, and if it doesn’t, then the hammer falls – there will be automatic sequestration of funds. There will be one point two trillion dollars in spending cuts if the Super Committee fails. Leon Panetta has already announced that cuts like those will cripple US military capability.”
“All it takes,” Murphy observed, “is six weeks in the Pentagon E Ring – make Mahatma Gandhi the US Secretary of Defense and after six weeks hanging out with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he’d be talking like that, too. The military will be okay; they waste hundreds of billions every year – sequestration will just introduce a degree of discipline they sorely need anyway, that’s all.”
“But if there’s no deal,” I persisted, “unemployment extensions will cease. Families that are just barely surviving now will end up completely destitute. Men and women – and their children – will be out on the street with nothing, just like they were in the 1930’s.”
“That’s just too damn bad,” Hilton flatly stated. “If those people would have read more Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek, they wouldn’t be in that situation.”
“No,” Murphy sniped, “It’s too damn bad that so many Republican politicians signed all those asinine Grover Norquist Tax Pledges.”
“No,” Hilton replied in a supercilious voice, “the fact is, the United States of American simply can’t afford to borrow money from China to pay people not to work – the only real solution is to lower rates on the job-creators right here in America.”
“If there’s no deal,” I persisted, “the Social Security tax cuts will expire. That means the poor and middle class will have to pay higher taxes. Shouldn’t you Republicans be against that?”
“Um… well,” Hilton muttered, “we… er… we haven’t decided whether that particular… aspect of sequestration is good… or bad.”
“And it’s subjects like that,” Murphy sneered, “the Republicans on the committee have spent all their time debating – with each other. They won’t even walk across the hall to debate us.”
“No,” Hilton countered in an acid tone, “it’s you Democrats who won’t talk to us Republicans.”
“About what?” Murphy beseeched mockingly. “Your six trillion dollar Go Big Option that would gut every social program passed in this country since 1960? You want us to take insanity like that seriously and debate with you about it?”
“Look,” Hilton parried, “sequestration is like when your kids are behaving like total hellions; they won’t listen, they won’t behave, they won’t clean up their rooms. What do you do? Ground everybody, that’s what! Sequestration’s like that.”
“Ground who?” Murphy demanded. “Certainly not the rich. Their tax rates are the lowest they have been in over eighty years, and sequestration would do nothing about that – except lower their total tax bills altogether, of course. The fact is, it’s utter lunacy to cut spending during a recession, and that’s exactly what the Republicans want!”
“No,” Hilton objected, “it’s utter lunacy to raise taxes during a recession, and that’s exactly what the Democrats want!”
“Since Congress made the law establishing the Super Committee,” the reporter interjected, “and the law establishing the sequestration, too, if you fail, can’t Congress simply amend the law and stop the sequestration process?”
“And have Moody’s downgrade American debt another notch?” Hilton shrieked. “Do you have any idea what kind of effects stopping the sequestrations would have on global financial markets?”
“Our balance of trade,” Murphy fretted, “would go straight down the tubes, too.”
“In that case,” I suggested, “it appears that the Republicans and Democrats on the Super Committee have no choice – between now and Monday morning, you’re going to have to compromise.”
Hilton’s eyes went wide. “Do what?”
“Compromise,” I repeated.
“What’s… ‘compromise’ mean?” Hilton queried.
“Huh?” I responded, gobsmacked. “Um, okay, Murphy, why don’t you tell Hilton here what the word ‘compromise’ means?”
“Ah… er… duh… what… the word… ‘compromise’ means?”
“Right,” I nodded, “tell him.”
“Are you… sure,” Murphy wondered aloud, “that ‘compromise’ really is a word?”
“It’s definitely in the dictionary,” the reporter assured him.
“As the dictionary says,” I recited, “’Compromise – A settlement of differences by consent reached by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing principles or views.’ From the thirteenth century Middle French, compromis, with the Latin root compromissus, past participle of compromittere, to make mutual promise.”
“It’s… been around… that long?” Hilton whispered, incredulous.
“Certainly,” I assured him.
“I can’t figure,” Hilton murmured, “why I never heard of it.”
“Me neither,” Murphy seconded.
“Maybe,” I proposed, “it would be a good idea for you guys to finish your drinks and get back up Capitol Hill and tell your respective bosses on the Super Committee about the concept, just in case they have never heard about it, either.”
Murphy looked at Hilton. Hilton looked at Murphy.
“I will,” Hilton offered, “after he does.”
“Oh, no,” Murphy shook his head, “Hilton has to go first.”
“No,” Hilton proclaimed, “you first!”
With that, the reporter finished her drink, got up and left. I waited for another thirty minutes, watching them argue.
Then I got up and left, too. They were still at it.