Post one- overview with some debt talk

For the first post of my blog, I'd just like to explain what exactly this blog is supposed to do. As a student, I take pride in the fact that I have access to an incredible amount of academic resources, and I feel that the best way for me to channel this passion is by taking what I have heard, read, seen, or felt and writing about it. So I am happy to say that I am joining the blogging world with intentions to share with any and everyone my personal synthesis of music, sports and politics in a way that is engaging, relatable, and fair. In political terms I am a left leaning moderate: socially liberal, fiscally moderate. However, I am probably most concerned with the efficiency and effectiveness of our government. I believe that pragmatism has shifted from government policy to election politics. Obviously, American politics has always been plagued by the desire to be reelected. But today we see politicians failing to do that which is necessary (i.e. republicans refusing to raise the debt ceiling so we can pay our nation's bills) because their supporting bases (i.e. the Tea Party) vows to fire anyone "who gives our president more money to waste" or whatever they say.

To me, the best government is one that provides the most services to the most people. The problem with this position, however, is that people,especially Americans who enjoy such an incredible mount of freedom, want more services than they are willing to pay for. This applies to both public and private sectors as well as to nearly all socioeconomic strata. A society under normal circumstances can control this problem fairly easily- a tweak here, adjustment there, a political charade if necessary.

But in the wake of one of the worst financial crises in modern history, our government has found itself in situation unlike any other. It knows that all of the economic numbers indicate that our recovery has been timid at best due, for the most part, to both high unemployment and Constant uncertainties in the global economy. We only have the ability to truly affect one of those- unemployment. Unfortunately, our government has spent the bulk of this summer playing political grab ass with the debt ceiling despite the "economic headwinds" that have become increasingly more obvious and more dangerous as bernanke said in July.

My point is that in this century, specifically is decade, the united states government is going to encounter problems that will require pragmatic, unconventional solutions (I.e. TARP and the bank bailout). These solutions will appear to be political suicide, especially in these hyper-partisan times, causing politicians to reach out further to their extreme support base. That is probably common sense to most but it is still important to note because it explains, at least to me, each political party's strategy during the debt negotiations. Democrats thought they could sweet talk their way into a deal with words like "balance" and "fair share." republicans thought that if the longer they refused to cooperate the more likely Obama would O-bey their demands. Obviously both sides lost. No solution. No compromise. Not even close. It was almost as if the Iron bowl ( auburn v Alabama) went into overtime andboth teams punted on 4th down, agreeing to appoint members of the offenses and defenses of both teams to play a winner takes all round of golf. (and yes, I really enjoyed that analogy)

We need our government to solve problems without creating any more. We also need our government to operate within its means. Am I alone in thinking that? Only in Washington, I guess.