It’s awful frustrating for the deadline of the fiscal cliff to be looming only to have a total media blackout. There are only 12 days left and eight of those days are weekends or holidays.
We’ve been shut out completely.
Of course, even when they were talking it was pretty infantile. The most transparency the media gave us was a couple of weeks ago. I guess the bigshots realized how silly they looked and decided to clam up. Here’s what transpired on November 29th…
(As you read this, think about how they’re still talking the same crap, like a never ending Groundhog Day sequel or 50 First Dates…)
(1) Early in the day, Speaker Boehner exits a closed door meeting with Treasury Secretary Geitner and tells the media, “the financial crisis is not a game.”
(2) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tells reporters a while later, “I don’t understand Boehner’s brain.”
(3) Then Boehner has an impromptu meeting with reporters and tells them, “Obama should get serious about spending in the deficit talks.”
(4) Meanwhile MarketWatch reports that “Investors are hopeful about a budget fix,” which is so at odds with the real news as to be irrationally exuberant.
(5) The White House press secretary pipes in around lunchtime at a briefing for reporters, with Obama’s answer to Boehner, “No debt deal unless tax rates on top earners go up.”
(6) Meanwhile, the two topest-top earners, Obama and Romney, are having lunch in the White House, totally oblivious to all these goings on. No doubt Obama is turning a deaf ear to everything Romney says because GQ Magazine just voted Romney “the least influential person of the year.”
All of this dancing over an $85 billion tax increase on the wealthy, as the $800 billion fiscal cliff looms (the actual fiscal cliff is only $600 billion; but you have to include $100 billion for FEMA for Sandy losses plus $100 billion in losses at the U.S. Post Office, FHA and a short jobless benefits extension).
Obama hasn’t even set up a date for another fifteen minute photo session with the major players. Nor has the White House done diddly squat to prepare for sequestration. Not to mention the debt ceiling, which we will hit right about New Year’s Day.
(7) Breaking news from Marketwatch. Romney and Obama focus on foreign policy issues. As if either one of them is a foreign policy wonk!
Somebody needs to give all these people empty cans of Progresso soup and a ball of twine so they can communicate.
