Budget Deals and Other Things

Funding for the Environmental Protection Agency has been saved in the latest federal budget deal. So has funding for Planned Parenthood. And apparently, I can now report, the National Endowment for the Arts. But President Obama realizes that he needs to come up with new cuts going forward in preparing the 2012 federal budget, and so he plans to propose cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. In ticking off the Democrats, he hopes that these cuts will make defense spending cuts and upper-income tax increases more acceptable to the Republicans.

Sure, when hell freezes over.

The spending cuts we're likely to get will continue, as they have for thirty years, to affect mostly the poor and the middle class. We'll be seeing more tax cuts for the rich and more programs and amenities wiped out. Far from heralding a golden progressive age, Obama's presidency looks to be the final act in destroying the amenities and services that make a country worth living in.

By the way, I saw the Johnny Depp-Angelina Jolie movie The Tourist yesterday, and I particularly took note of the high-speed train scene where their characters first meet. I grew envious of the sleek passenger cars, the comfortable seating, the elegant dining car . . . and, of course, wanted to blurt out, "Why can't we have this in America?"

Because the people in charge of America are in no mood to provide decent public services for its citizens, especially anything that reeks of too much "government spending" and "socialized medicine" or "socialized transport."

For more than twenty years now, I've always voted in favor of my own economic interests, particularly my interest in seeing better schools, modern intercity passenger rail, and, of course, single-payer health insurance. (Like Ed Schultz, I'm a single-payer guy.) Not all of the candidates I vote for win elections, but who cares if they do? Because no matter whom I vote for, no matter who wins, I lose!

And as far as I'm concerned, I think the game is almost over. That's when everybody loses. Except the rich, of course.

Although, when I think about it, maybe high-speed trains are an imperfect fit for America. The Tourist showed a high-speed train - the same kind of train President Obama hoped to get built in Ohio before John Kasich intervened - from Paris to Venice. Somehow, the idea of such a sleek, elegant train connecting Cleveland to Cincinnati - by way of Columbus - seems laughable.