Country First?

"The days of me first, country second end on Nov. 4," McCain said, later adding: "That's how we see this election, country first or Obama first."

The crowd replied with chants of "Country first! Country first!"

After that, you'd think McCain had spent his time giving a speech to the audience about the need for everyone to take responsibility for the mess we've gotten ourselves into. But no, these childish taunts were preceded by calls to never raise taxes.

Yes, apparently by "country first" he means "baby-boomers first" and the future generations can pick up the tab. I haven't added it all up, but from what I can tell with all the promises being made by the Federal Government, they might have just increased our budget deficit by upwards of 50%. [update: apparently it could be upwards of $1 trillion dollars.]

How about Johnny Straight Talk actually follows his self-described "maverick" image and do what no Republican Presidential candidate has done in decades; level with the American people that we can't get out of our financial mess without a combination of spending cuts AND tax increases.

According to McCain, "[r]aising taxes in a tough economy is not patriotic. It's not a badge of honor. It's just plain dumb." That is all well and good, but when is a good time to raise taxes? If the economy is going well, the Republicans scream that raising taxes will hurt it. When the economy is going bad, they cry about a tax increase on the uber-wealthy hurting us even more. All the while we continue to add billions upon billions of dollars to a federal debt, the interest of which will in the not to distant future become one of the largest line items in the federal budget. In response, Johnny One Note simply talks about earmarks, which account for 2-3% of the budget deficit.

I still keep getting the sinking feeling that a failure of American democracy is almost self-evident. We have a populace and a political class unwilling to make any real difficult decisions. We are bailing out financial companies who made piss poor decisions, and we are relying on foreign nation's to bail us out of the bail outs.

How much longer is China going to be willing to buy our debt? We have conservative commentators who worry about China's military expansion, but in reality, all they have to do is stop buying our bonds and the house of cards that is the American Government will come crashing down under the burden of 6 decades worth of irresponsible practices.

Neither Obama nor McCain seem willing to do what is truly necessary. Personally, I think Obama is more pragmatic and thus will be more likely to move in the right direction, but short of some sort of economic or geopolitical disaster, I don't see us disabusing ourselves of the notion that we can continue to do whatever we like, for as long as we like, without paying the consequences. Unfortunately, it will be my generation that bears the brunt and burden of prior generations' lack of responsibility, and I quite frankly don't know that we are up to the task.

Update:

I hate it when I agree with Buchanan.

What the Greatest Generation handed down to us — the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved — the baby boomers, oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away.