Usa, the real stake in Obama's battle on the debt is the very idea of ​​America

The debt battle underway in Washington is not national accounting, it is politics and political culture: the very idea of ​​America is at stake. That is, if America has the means to continue making her promise of hope come alive, or if she doesn't have them. Not in the sense that she won't have them anymore, but in the sense that she must rebuild them, an operation that is never painless, and that she knows so much about Old Europe. The mere thought of being more or less in a European situation deeply irritates almost all good Americans, who experience this as the denial of two centuries of proud national history.
First of all, don't confuse procedure and substance. The fact that there is now a great negotiation, and a great battle, in Washington, on raising the legal ceiling of the federal debt, which has now been exceeded for about a month and was last set at just over 14 trillion dollars, it is partly a procedural thing: the law requires either to raise the ceiling, or to reduce spending, wildly, and stop the debt.
The extent of the debt, which is and would in any case be a very serious problem, is the substance, with or without a roof. There have been ten ceiling increases since 2000 and a total of almost 80 since 1940, but the battle has never been so close because, and this is the substance of the problem, we have now reached the limits of what is sustainable. Indeed, the limits have been exceeded, but a compliant accounting does not make everything official. Not yet.
It is difficult for Washington to reach a real agreement on the eve of an election year. The Republicans, in a kind of blindness that can only be self-destructive if they don't find some personality capable of saving them, are determined not to raise taxes. How senseless this is, the numbers show and 30 years, from Reagan onwards, of ideological faith in tax cuts as a panacea. Lower taxes boosted growth, under Kennedy and initially under Reagan. Then they created huge imbalances between income and expenditure. But the idea that every dollar removed from Washington is a dollar for America, which knows how to make it pay off beautifully, has been for many the heart – for 30 years, not always before – of the American creed, in its radical-Republican version which since almost two generations dominates in that party.
Barack Obama is ready to make massive cuts in spending, touching, something hitherto considered suicidal, the public pension system, Social Security. But he also rightly wants tax increases. Today federal taxes are equivalent to 19% of GDP and with state and local taxes we arrive at a levy of just under 30% according to 2010 data from the European Central Bank. In the euro area we are at 44%, overall.
An agreement will almost certainly be found before August 2, when Washington would otherwise start not paying salaries and bills. But we can bet that everything will be projected into the future, after 2012, the election year. The markets will believe it if they want to believe it. After 2012, that is tomorrow. The culture of the mañana has forded the Rio Grande.
Republicans are weakened, in the distance, by blind faith in the goodness of the policy of "starving Washington" which has already brought so much trouble to the country; but a significant part of their electorate on this not only follows them, it spurs them on, true – blinded – heirs of a nation born of a tax revolt. The trouble is that a part of the anti-taxes are then in favor of spending, when it concerns them, as is always the case everywhere.
Obama's Democrats are weakened, when they offer sacrifices to everyone, by the fact that with the Wall Street bailout of 2008-2009, and still in progress, sacrifices from the big banks have asked for few.
As for the numbers, they speak for themselves. Officially, the American public debt is 100% of GDP or almost, in reality it is 140%, since it is necessary to add 20% for state and local debt, which is counted in Europe, and at least 20% for the debt of real estate mega-financiers Fannie and Freddie, which Washington has been guaranteeing in full for almost three years and whose weight, based on an optimistic calculation, is no less than 3 trillion. The average of euro countries is less than 90 percent debt. Then there is the Italian case at 120%, which is always less than the real American 140%, leaving aside for a moment the "small" Greece and Portugal which also give so many problems. Second only, among OECD countries, to Japan. Italy has a lot of other troubles and it certainly can't be said that overall it is better off than the United States, not in reality and much less in perspective, but these are the figures.
In both cases, America and Europe, the resources are there in the end, however painful the operation may be. It's a leadership problem. And the American advantage, and there are others, is that only one ruling class in Washington can show the way. In the euro area, 17 capitals need to be heard. And it's not a little extra complication. Otherwise, we are in the same boat.