The debt-ceiling crisis: On the cutting edge of ignorance

I have no doubt that the folks in Washington will, in spite of their affinity for brinksmanship, come to a compromise agreement on raising the debt ceiling. I also have no doubt that the agreement will have nothing to do with the fundamental issues facing us, as we examine and debate the role of government in our society, and the direction that our culture should be moving in.

All this talk about “fairness,” taxing the rich, and passing a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget, reminds me of a quote from Shakespeare (via William Faulkner):

“... It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Our country is undoubtedly at a critical point in our evolution. But what concerns me most is the gross ignorance surrounding what this crisis is really about. It is not about tax rates, raising revenue, capping spending, addressing income disparity, or redistributing wealth. It is about RISK.

The United States did not build the greatest society the world has ever seen — a society that has provided the masses of people with a quality of life never seen before — by simply rewarding people for working hard. Arleah and I have been in country after country where people work as hard as you can imagine, and they remain in grinding, gut-wrenching poverty. Nor did we build this amazing society through noble, altruistic work. The Mother Theresas of the world may have been admirable individuals, but the people they served are still trapped in a poverty that is beyond comprehension.

This country was built by rewarding and incentivizing individuals to put everything they owned, valued, and treasured on the line; for the opportunity to better their lives, and even, rise to a level of success that they could have never, in their wildest dreams, envisioned. Our culture is rife with stories of people achieving the “American Dream” — starting with next to nothing, and creating success and wealth that legends are built on.

What is not so often highlighted is the deception, chicanery, and cruel manipulation, that these risk-takers were exposed to; and which, for many, resulted in their total and abysmal failure. What we haven’t wanted to deal with, since at least the 1960s, is that both — phenomenal success and abject failure — are equally necessary for a society of unlimited opportunity.

Risk-takers can deal with financial challenges, limited resources, and difficult people. What dispirits and discourages them is pointless, politically correct, and downright stupid regulations. That is, rules and policies that, by and large, attempt to protect people from their own irresponsibility, laziness, and idiocy. These regulations not only cost risk-takers inordinate amounts of money, they stunt the very creativity that has produced the No. 1 economy in the world. In addition, they infantilize much of the public, and cripple the ability of millions of people, to represent their own interests and act in their own behalf.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has a department that does nothing else but track the regulation of our society; both in terms of its economic cost, and its impact on the erosion of our culture. They put out a publication called “The 10,000 Commandments,” (the amount of regulations imposed just under Obama), and determine their cost to our economy.

The cost of complying with this obscene number of regulations, under this administration, is close to a trillion dollars. Yes, a trillion dollars. Talk about throwing money down a rat-hole. The amount of government agencies that regulate the production of marketable beef is staggering, and it takes the efforts of over 10 agencies to regulate beehives. If you want to watch your neighbors’ kids, on a consistent basis, you will most likely be harassed and threatened (by the “child protective” bureaucracy) into major construction work on your house to accommodate the toilet needs of phantom hordes of non-existent children. I have written before of my favorite regulatory absurdity that is showcased in my doctor’s office. It is illustrated with a sign above the patients’ toilet that reads:

 “We have water-saving toilets. Please flush twice.”

So, I am not terribly troubled by the negotiations going on in D.C. Whatever kind of financial package they put together will not be terribly relevant to the central issue that has us stagnated, economically and culturally. Under the current regulatory environment, the people who can fire-up and fine-tune our economic engine (and create lots of jobs) are paralyzed and frozen in stride, tired of trying to predict what the next cockamamie regulation is going to be.

What we need, then, is a war — a citizens’ uprising against the caretakers and risk-haters. I think that a growing number of people are sufficiently fed up with being treated as helpless idiots, to stem the tide of this regulatory insanity. If there ever was a time, it strikes me as now.

Morrie Shechtman, of Kalispell, is chairman of Fifth Wave Leadership and has consulted with hundreds of top executives worldwide about managing in a time of disruptive change and high risk.