Sunday, Oct. 31, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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It’s Halloween. The time when our children do their best to scare us — mostly for an overdose of sugar.
In the end, though, the greatest damage we do to ourselves by indulging our kids is a stomachache or, perhaps, a cavity or two, along with some sugar-induced hyperactivity that temporarily knows no bounds.
This Halloween is different, though. This time there are some exceedingly selfish adults who are scaring the children. And, yes, their parents as well.
While hope continues to spring eternal, I don’t know where President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” legislation will land — if, indeed, it ever takes off — because this is written while the legislative sausage-making process continues to be an ongoing daily, hourly, by-the-minute process that has most Americans who are paying attention sick to their stomachs by now.
What is scaring most people about the Congress’ obvious inability to cobble together legislation that an overwhelming majority of Americans want and need — right now — is the prospect of no legislation at all.
I said “most people” because a failure of the president to get his infrastructure bills over the finish line will provide a huge short-term benefit to the Republicans. Biden will have a failed presidency and the GOP will have a cakewalk in the 2022 elections.
The losers, of course, will be every American city that has collapsing bridges, highways, tunnels and water systems. The losers also will include every working American whose family has been financially devastated as a result of the 2008 crash and ensuing financial meltdown from which they never recovered, as well as from the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to wreak havoc on the people who can least afford the damage.
The fact that the GOP has abandoned its post and left the entirety of passing the infrastructure bills to the Democrats — of which there are 50 in a world that requires 60-votes — is nothing new. They have done that before and the public has held them accountable — after a fashion.
The fact that these 50 votes in the Senate are comprised of some legislators (across the political spectrum) who believe their outsized power positions give them the ability to demand more than they should is a relatively new phenomenon.
At a time when political fortunes have left hanging in the balance far more than policy disagreements between the two major parties —and by this I mean they use country-dividing, democracy-killing, secession-threatening language attached to the outcomes — it is imperative that the vast middle of American political thought be far more active in preserving and protecting our democracy.
It does not matter whether the president’s plan spends $1 trillion or $5 trillion to fix America. That’s a whole lot of money to be sure. What matters, though, is whether we ever get started.
We are long past that time when the United States led the world in competitiveness and quality manufacturing. We are dropping like a stone in most categories that will be determinative of our future at the head of the pack or trailing far behind.
It is the adults who have gotten us into this unenviable position over many decades. We have put our children and their children at risk of presiding over an America that no longer leads and, therefore, can only follow countries whose interests may be far different from our own.
But that’s where we are because the Democrats are acting like children — refusing to get along for the greater good, just as they have always done. And the Republicans are adults, acting like Scrooge (as long as we are nearing the Christmas holiday), always in lock-step with the do whatever it takes to win — especially if the little people are paying for it — at an all costs attitude.
This is madness. It is also life in these United States. And if the good people in the middle of American thought don’t put a stop to this craziness, Halloween will not be the scariest time of the year.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
