2023-10-02 04:00:00
In the United States, Kevin McCarthy, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, might be removed from office as early as this week. His crime? He worked with Democrats to pass the budget and saved the U.S. government from being shut down.
And once more, the new budget is only valid for 45 days. Worse, it does not include any aid measures for Ukraine.
This is not the first time that the American government has found itself paralyzed in this way. In 2018, Democrats refused to vote on a budget that would have included funds to build the wall on the southern border that Donald Trump wanted to build to curb the entry of illegal immigrants into the United States.
This time, around twenty elected officials from the Republican Party refused to vote in favor of the budget as long as drastic cuts in government spending were not included in it.
Having failed to completely block the budget, these extremist elected officials now want to bring down the president of the chamber.
Who is an extremist?
From their point of view, the extremists are rather the Democrats who constantly seek to increase government spending, and therefore to dig their hands deeper into the pockets of American taxpayers.
In reality, very rich people and companies pay less and less tax, which forces the middle classes to pay more and more.
Cutting services to citizens is an extremist measure.
But conversely, imagining that state funds are inexhaustible is also extremist thinking.
For example, this is what many non-profit organizations that deal with illegal immigrants in the United States seem to believe.
painful choices
The sad reality is that state funds are not inexhaustible. Choices are inevitable and sometimes painful. Is it better to partly finance the war in Ukraine rather than pay to meet the basic needs of illegal immigrants? Is it possible to do both? But what other expenses should then be dropped? Or what taxes should be increased?
Unfortunately, political extremists have no use for these kinds of considerations.
Those who want to reduce state spending imagine that they would earn more money in a society that comes closer to the law of the jungle. They refuse to understand that private often costs more than public, as shown by the pathetic American health care system.
Conversely, extremists who seek to endlessly increase government spending in the name of magnificent philosophical values do not understand that such increases can generate high inflation and ultimately impoverish everyone.
For decades, the Société des alcools du Québec has had the slogan: moderation tastes better. It’s the same in politics. But clearly, our times do not lend themselves to moderation.
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