Where is the 800 Pound Gorilla?

The 800 Pound Gorilla in the Closets of Adam, Noah and Madeleine:
These are, of course, our grandchildren. Most of you remember the times with your children or grandchildren at bedtime when they called you into their rooms to have you determine where the terrible 800 pound gorilla was hiding that night. You probably went through all the motions, searching under the bed (where it could not possibly fit), inspecting the windows and drapes, and then opening the closet to see if he had hidden there.

Reassured as to the gorilla’s absence, your child asks for another kiss and hug and promises to go to sleep. The gorilla was never there, but small children have a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality and the gorilla can seem very real. In any case, what they wanted the most was the additional reassurance that they were not alone and that you were there, at home, taking care of them.

There is a real 800 pound “gorilla” in this election, and right now it actually is hiding in the “closet” created by the collaboration between the media and the candidates. It does not weigh a mere 800 pounds, however. It actually weighs in at $500 Billion dollars, give or take, and it presents the amount that the Federal Government will borrow from your children and grandchildren to pay for expenditures that politicians of both political parties have decided to spend in this year. Unlike the imaginary gorilla in your children’s closet, this one is very real and it will devour the future of your children and grandchildren unless it is confronted and dealt with honestly and fairly.

The gorilla is hidden in the closet because no one – neither the candidates, nor the analysts, nor the commentators or the talk show hosts – really seem t have any interest in talking about it. The Presidential candidates, and the candidates for the House and the Senate, much prefer to tell you what they plan to give you, rather than what they plan to take away from you. They assume with great cynicism, and perhaps they are correct, that we voters care only about what government provides us today, and care nothing about what we want the government to provide our children and grandchildren.

The candidates talk about their “gifts” to their constituents endlessly – universal health care, schools that actually work, more Medicare and Social Security, generous benefits for veterans, a “victory” of some sort in Iraq and Afghanistan, a bigger and better armed military, and subsidies for oil exploration, corn or a thousand other things. The promises of “gifts” will go on forever; the costs are nowhere to be found – and this is true for all of them. With a government that is already spending $500 Billion more every year than it takes in, they ignore almost completely the $500 Billion dollar gorilla they have already created and they continue to behave as if the size of this gorilla can increase indefinitely.

Unfortunately, the truth is nowhere to be found among our political elite. As this gorilla comes out of the closet, he will devour the value of the dollar, devalue all of your families assets, place crushing tax requirements on your children and grandchildren, reduce the growth of the American economy, increase dramatically the influence of the Chinese and Oil despots over our policies, permit the easy purchase of our companies and our assets by foreign dollar holders, reduce our national security, and increase the price of every imported item that our children and grandchildren will need. The morality of doing these things to the next generations, all in the name of protecting incumbents of both parties, is horrifying; and yet all of these candidates ceremoniously wrap themselves in the robes of religion and proclaim their Christian, Jewish, or Muslim virtues while systematically stealing from the next generations.

The “Special Morality” of those in Politics:
There are good and valid reasons that the voters hate the President of the United States and the Congress. Both institutions are at the lowest level of their popularity ever. Most voters actually have a sense of morality that includes a belief that they do not have the right to ruin things for their children and grandchildren. Quite the contrary, most of us work very hard indeed in an attempt to insure that our children and grandchildren have a better future than we did.

The “self-interest” calculation of those in politics, however, turns our personal morality on its head. The incumbents seek to make their incumbency as close to invulnerable as they can, and they routinely sell access to the public treasury to those who so generously finance their incumbency through campaign contributions. The morality of the incumbent, therefore, involves the outright “sale” of our children’s future for the sole purpose of keeping them in office. We all “know” this to be true, no matter how much campaign money they spend to convince us with their propaganda that their view of morality is the same as our own.

The Differences Between McCain and Obama on the 800 Pound Gorilla:
Neither of these esteemed gentlemen have said very much about the “gorilla” that is in the closet of our children and grandchildren. However, McCain has said that he plans to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rebuild our military, and make permanent the tax cuts engineered by the Bush Administration. Like all politicians, he decries “government waste,” which he will eliminate, without identifying which programs constitute “waste.” By implication, therefore, it is logical to assume that McCain intends to “feed” the gorilla in the closet of our children and grandchildren with ever increasing deficits.

Obama has also said almost nothing about the gorilla, except to “blame” it on the Bush Administration and the Republicans in Congress, and, as we all know, blaming is a whole lot easier and less painful than taking any responsibility for reducing the deficit. Obama has said that he will restore taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year to the level they were in the Clinton Administration, including the capital gains tax. I do not have the exact figures, but that represents only a fraction of the national deficit, but a fraction is better than nothing at all. He would also provide a phased withdrawal from Iraq, and that would eventually reduce some expenditure. However, unlike McCain, Obama is promising to increase government spending in a lot of areas, and, as usual for candidates, he is unwilling to specify where the funds will come from. By implications as well, therefore, it is equally logical at this point to assume that Obama also intends to “feed” the gorilla, at least as much as McCain. The Republicans, of course, will do everything in their power to paint Obama as the “classic” “tax and spend” Democrat, although the tax and spend policies of the past eight years under Republicans are extraordinary.

Where Does that Leave the Rest of Us?
Puzzled? Frustrated? Maybe even angry! I do not expect much of anything from McCain and his Republican allies. McCain wants and will receive the backing of the Bush Administration and the evangelical, Christian right wing of the Republican Party. With such an infusion of Christian zealotry, they have managed one of the most immoral and unethical administration in my lifetime, all justified in the name of God, who forgives all of them for their lies, deceit, manipulations, and corruption. With a “God” like theirs, who needs the “Devil?” They were the ones, after all, who inherited increasing surpluses and reduced them to massive deficits in eight short years.

Unfortunately, I do expect more of Barak Obama, and I expect him to talk about this problem with more candor than he has to date. So far, I have been disappointed.

I also would expect a little more from the national media, who have nothing to lose in representing our children and grandchildren by asking the candidates more about this issue than about the trivia that seems foremost in their collective minds. In this regard, I may well be expecting much too much. Oh where are you Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Morrow when we need you?

The situation makes me long for the return of Ross Perot, who almost single handedly in 1992 and 1993 forced America to deal with this issue, demonstrating over and over again that Americans as a whole care a whole lot more about their children and grandchildren than the “politicians” that represent them. I had hoped that Mayor Bloomberg might pick up the challenge, because I know that he understands and cares about the problem, but that was not to be.

Perhaps, as the Reverend Jeremiah Wright said, Barak Obama is just another politician like the rest of them. I can’t know at this point, but time will tell, as they say. “Hope” and “change” might be nice, but a little better future for my children and grandchildren would be nicer still!

Just my opinion,

Gordon Black
P.S. Adam is eight, Noah is six, and Maddy is three.