If there's anything the last few years have taught us...

[randomness]

...it's that when they're faced with a hard deadline, politicians' first impulse is to kick the can down the road.

It's been true in Europe, and it seems to be the same in the States.

Comments

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

It's not like the voters will reward you for making "hard choices".

[gee-tar.livejournal.com]

It's not exactly a new phenomenon. Heck, even the framers of the Constitution kicked the problem of slavery down the road rather than deal with it.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Truthfully, you win this thread.

I didn't intend to imply that can-kicking was particularly recent, but that the last few years (from the 2008 crisis on) were a fine illustration of it. But really, you nailed it. Cheers.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Though at the time (or so I was taught) there was reason to believe that the problem would actually go away over time. Slavery was becoming uneconomical because sorting the cotton fibers from the cotton seeds by hand was too expensive. But then Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and cotton became very profitable...

[fin9901.livejournal.com]

Yep. The United States has been kicking the can called Social Security down the road since the 1980s at least. Bush tried to do something about it in 2005 after his re-election, but the can-kickers stiffened their spine and then Katrina happened.

Immigration has been another can that's been kicked down the road repeatedly. The system is a total mess but the people trying to 'fix' it inevitably have plans that will only make it worse.

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

Yeah, immigration was one of the few places I was literally *disappointed* with W. Bush, in the sense that I was expecting him to do a much better job than other recent presidents (both in terms of federal policy reform, and Republican Party position reform), but instead I didn't really see him make much in the way of long-term progress. Although I admit I am biased against him, so I might have ignored some good things he did there.

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

I just heard a great quote, about how the two things politicians do (as a class) to get elected are to promise more spending and less taxing, and that they are thus (as a class) completely unprepared to deal with situations that call for the opposite of both.