David Brooks Tells the Truth on Democrats, Republicans, Medicare, the Deficit and American Politics

At last, someone who’s astute, knowledgeable and wise tells the
truth about American politics. And a Republican voter, no less. This
morning’s article by a homeless Hamiltonian lashing out finally put all
the issues in print.

Brooks, a “pundit under protest,”emphasizes
the clear fact that this election is about how to avert national
decline. As he notes, this election is happening during a downturn in
the economic cycle. But what’s obvious to him and seemingly few others,
is that we’re dealing with an accumulation of deeper structural problems
that this recession has exposed.

The challenges that lie ahead are exposed by a McKinsey study, An economy that works. The statistics are terrifying, but they form an enlightening backdrop for Brooks’ column.

The challenges ahead:

  • 21 million jobs needed by 2020 to return to full employment
  • 9.3-22.5 million, the range of jobs created in low-and high-job-growth scenarios
  • 1.5 million, the estimated shortage of college graduates in the workforce in 2020
  • 40%, the proportion of companies planning to hire that have had openings for 6 months
  • 58%, the employers who say that they will hire more temporary and part-time workers.

In sum, the projected length of our “jobless recovery” is expected to
be 60 months. A research article just published by Wharton faculty came
up with the same conclusion. Happy days are not going to be here
anytime soon.

But back to Brooks:

The Republican growth agenda — tax cuts
and nothing else — is stupefyingly boring, fiscally irresponsible and
politically impossible. Gigantic tax cuts — if they were affordable —
might boost overall growth, but they would do nothing to address the
structural problems that are causing a working-class crisis.

Republican politicians don’t design
policies to meet specific needs, or even to help their own working-class
voters. They use policies as signaling devices — as ways to reassure
the base that they are 100 percent orthodox and rigidly loyal.
Republicans have taken a pragmatic policy proposal from 1980 and
sanctified it as their core purity test for 2012.        

The Democrats are just as guilty and just as irrelevant.

As for the Democrats, they offer
practically nothing. They acknowledge huge problems like wage stagnation
and then offer… light rail! Solar panels! It was telling that the
Democrats offered no budget this year, even though they are supposedly
running the country. That’s because they too are trapped in a bygone
era.

Mentally, they are living in the era of
affluence, but, actually, they are living in the era of austerity. They
still have these grand spending ideas, but there is no longer any money
to pay for them and there won’t be for decades. Democrats dream New
Deal dreams, propose nothing and try to win elections by making sure
nobody ever touches Medicare.    

What conclusion can a person draw?    

The appropriate agenda, still
impossible for both parties, is to be pro-market and pro-government.
This either/or business is liable to be the death-knell of life they
we’ve had it in the past.

What can a person do?

I’d raise political hell with every
voter you know and keep the truth on the agenda. Challenge the
one-noters: the issue is not just about the deficit and the issue is not
just about Medicare. It’s a lot deeper and more complex.

When it comes to your career and you job, here are a few suggestions:

  1. Stay on top of your company’s business, finances, the industry and the competition.
  2. Make certain you know what your firm’s
    customers are thinking and griping about. That’s liable to be as
    valuable as your firm’s finances.
  3. Keep your internal and external network growing and useful so you know when to take on other opportunities and jump ship.
  4. Keep rebuilding your interpersonal
    skills. The interpersonal demands are becoming tougher every day.
    Technology won’t save you. But a bit of technology and superb
    interpersonal skills are an absolute necessity. They give you info,
    support, and make you invaluable to any organization.
  5. Build your leadership skills. Whether
    you’re low on the totem pole, or high, you need to be able to work
    successfully with people over whom you have no power. Chemistry is
    rarely the issue. Leadership and the interpersonal are all about skill.

In summary, it’s wise to be very skeptical about media, all media.
Don’t trust cable, the internet, or even my blogs. Check out the
statistics, the insights, the inferences, the conclusions writers and
talkers draw. Recognize bias, emotion and reasons for what they are.
It’s a messy world out there.

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