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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 31-Jan-07
Today's Schadenfreude: The Congressional pay raise is blocked.

Web Log - January, 2007

Today's Schadenfreude: The Congressional pay raise is blocked.

Congress is so paralyzed, they can't even raise their own salaries!

Lawmakers will have to make do with their $165,200 salary this year, thanks to political bickering that's causing their usual 1.7% cost of living increase to be cancelled.

The details are too boring for any but the politically obsessed to care, but basically it's that the Democrats screwed the Republicans last year when the Republicans were in power, so now the Republicans want to screw the Democrats when the Democrats are in power.

My reason for mentioning this is to tie it into what I've been saying frequently: governments of countries that fought in World War II are all becoming increasingly paralyzed. That's because the various government agencies and infrastructures were set up by the survivors of the war, with the purpose of keeping any new war from happening again. The generation of people born after the war (like America's Baby Boomer generation) don't have the skills to effectively operate these agencies, now that the people who set them up are gone, and only know how to argue.

We can see this happening in the European Union, which is unable to agree on a new constitution, we can see it in Britain, where Prime Minister Tony Blair is being forced to step down under fire, and we can see it here in America, where members of Congress, now mostly from the Boomer generation, are crippling the government and preventing President Bush from governing, without providing any alternative. We can see this in Israel, mired in scandals over the Lebanon war, and in the Palestinian government, which is close to civil war. Even China's People's National Congress was paralyzed by ideology last year.

So it's not surprising to me that the U.S. Congress can't even pass it's own pay raise, though it causes a good laugh to hear it.

I'm going to be interested in seeing whether Congress is capable of doing ANYTHING this year. Will they pass a minimum wage bill? Will they even be able to pass that famous non-binding resolution against the Iraq war "surge" that everyone on TV has been talking about? We'll have to wait and see.

But there's one thing for sure: whatever happens, the Democrats and Republicans will be passing gas blaming each other for it. So, for those of you who are partisans on one side or the other, your fun has only just begun. And this thing about the Congressional pay raises is certainly something we can all enjoy. (31-Jan-07) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 31-Jan-07 Today's Schadenfreude: The Congressional pay raise is blocked.

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 31-Jan-07
Today's Schadenfreude: The Congressional pay raise is blocked.