Both ooze the sincerity of carnival pitchmen marking down prices of their elixirs before the suckers head home for the holidays.
Boehner is touting a Plan B on
tax rates while the President offers to trim $1.22 trillion in spending over
ten years, much of it from “a new measure of inflation that slows the growth of
government benefits, especially Social Security” along with “$290 billion in
savings from lower interest costs on a reduced national debt.”
Somewhere in this never-neverland
is a formula to give both sides the illusion of compromise while preserving the
ground for manufactured future debt-ceiling crises to keep the old show from
closing down after the new year.
So it seems to be with gun
control as well, much harrumphing in the face of national shock and sorrow but
no real commitment to change.
Even Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post editorializes: “Weapons
designed expressly to kill human beings, and then modified (wink wink) to meet
the federal machine-gun ban, have no legitimate place in American society. Time
to get rid of them.”
But who will put the bell on
that NRA cat? As petitions against violent video games mount, there is a “rising
chorus, but not quite consensus, on guns” in Congress.
How many members will be
singing peace-on-earth carols this week, only to retreat behind a gun-lobby
shield when Christmas is over?
Whatever gifts politicians are
wrapping for us now, it would be prudent to save the receipts and find out
after the holidays how much they are really worth.
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