In the long run, however, Democrats won’t be the only losers. What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t.
Hearing McConnell's comments last night, economist Jared Bernstein was shocked. "This is not the way of great nations," he wrote. I disagree. The political system that doesn’t modernize and eventually finds its vulnerabilities exploited by interest-group pressure, internal divisions and reckless politicians? This is certainly the way of great nations. It’s the way they fall.
Welcome to the United States of Austerity: Polluted water, smoggy skies, crumbling bridges, less education funding, more unhealthy Americans: the impact of the debt deal's massive cuts.
