Both sides of the story ...


I have been increasingly irritated by the way journalists and commentators - particularly on the BBC - keep referring to the government shutdown in the USA as if it were entirely the fault of the Tea Party.

There are two sides to every story and in particular it takes two sides to have a deadlock.

I don't necessarily support the position the hardline republicans in the US have taken, though I agree that they are right to be concerned at the size of their deficit and debt just as sensible people on this side of the atlantic are still very concerned about the size of hours. To suggest that either side has a monopoly of the blame for the situation strikes me as "dumbing down" your reporting and opens you to charges of bias.

Now I do not support the Tea Party - if I were an American citizen and had the guts to stick to this position I would probably be a either a member of that increasingly endangered species, a moderate Republican, or a floating voter.

As someone who is economically on the centre right (what we call an economic liberal and on the other side of the pond they call an economic conservative) I would have serious problems with the economic policies of most Democrat candidates, but as a social liberal, and despite being a christian myself, I have serious problems with some of the off-the-wall policies of the so-called "religious right."

Nevertheless, they are right to be worried about the US budget.

It has sometimes been quite extraordinary to watch the interplay between British Conservatives and US republicans, and between Labour in Britain and US Democrats. Labour Prime Ministers in Britain usually get on very well with a Democrat US President, and British Conservative Prime Ministers usually get on very well with a Republican President.

But because office tends to push British Prime Ministers of whatever party into working hard to maintain good relations with the US President of the day, even if he or she is of the opposite party, when the political cycles in the two countries are out of sync that often puts extreme pressure on the relations between the opposition party in each country and their sister party in power in the other.

The most recent example was Ed Miliband's position re Syria, but there are many others - Mitt Romney's comments on the Olympics and the NHS being another. The most extreme case was the consequences of the extraordinarly lockstep between Tony Blair and George W Bush. This wasn't exactly the most popular of Blair's policies in his own party, but it also made it almost impossible for some Conservative leaders to maintain their normal good relations with US republicans.

There were certain American republican leaders, who were not noted for their high opinion of Bill Clinton, who could not understand why asking the British Conservatives to go easy on Tony Blair should cause massive offence. They just didn't get that the most significant differences between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton were that Tony has a British passport and is faithful to his wife.

Comments

Jim said…
Looked quite a lot at American Politics. Main reason was I wanted to further understand the housing crash, what caused it and was it at all predictable, so I started listening to a radio show, and many videos and presentations from a guy called Peter Schiff on line (he is a very popular US stock broker and Austrian economist) This lead to to the Mises Instutue where i enrolled and completed a few online courses in austrian economics. Though by the nature of american courses then to fully understand the examples, a familiarization with american politics and the fed helped a lot.

I too have never come to terms with the saying "religious right, or christian right as its more often quoted" nor the "Liberal left".

You are absoluty correct that to blame either side for the shut down is poor reporting, though i do think that the BBC is institutionally biased in its reporting of many subjects.

Personally i think it is the fiscal policy of the USA that is to blame for the current problem, and it will be the "house of cards that crashes" maybe not this time, but soon enough. Thats one reason i think osbourne was quite prudent to go and see the Chinese.

There is one thing that is positive for the UK about US money policy though, when you look at the US policies then by comparison British ones actually look quite sane.
Jim said…
I did write on facebook about the outcome to current fiasco, I wrote this last week using nothing but the basics: will be interesting to see how it dues turn out though.

I wrote the following on Sunday 6th October.

And from the crystal ball this week:

There is currently a US government shutdown and a stand off, though i can see in the crysal ball this week that there will be a compromise probably on Wednesday 16th, to put aside their political differences and raise the debt ceiling. This will happen more than likely on 16th as the treasury is due to run out of money on Thursday 17th.
Isnt it great to have such great people who will work together to solve a crisis, - "what do you mean they made it up and caused it in the first place are you a consipiracy theorist or something"

So yeah the crystal ball tells me there will be a back down by one side, more than likely the reps will go for a deal on the tax on employers paying for the ACA, the pres will back down and hold the tax for a while, for the good of the nation of course, and then the evil republicans will be held for the whole thing.

Wow - this crystal ball is only stating the bloody obvious these days, think i will have to buy some new batteries for it.

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