President Obama and Speaker Boehner are making a lot of noise about compromise.  They say they will work together to avoid the fiscal cliff brought about by higher taxes and spending cuts.  Comforting, isn’t it?  But here is the problem.  It is not true.  They will not work together.  They will not compromise.  And we face a bleak economic future as a result.

How can I make such a gloomy forecast?  Because the best indicator of the future is the past, and their pasts are full of unshakeable political positions and meaningless platitudes.  Or lies, depending on your perspective.  At present, neither man holds a credible position.

Obama wants to raise taxes on the wealthy.  That is fine with me.  Let the wealthy pay a little more.  But the inconvenient truth is that Obama could tax the wealthy out of all their income without making a dent in the deficit.  His position is a ridiculously phony symbolic gesture.  And people cheer him for it.  You have to admire a man who can fool so many people so much of the time.

Boehner wants to cut spending.  That’s fine too, I guess.  But where will he cut?  From which programs?  Boehner won’t make specific recommendations, so it is impossible to tell what effect his proposed cuts would have.  Boehner is an amazing man.  He has spent twenty years in Congress, paraded on television, held press conferences, spewed out more words than anyone in Washington, and yet no one knows what in the world he is talking about.  Apparently this is how you get reelected to Congress.

Both men are public servants.  Both are supposed to put the good of the country ahead of politics.  Neither has shown any tendency to work together or listen to the other side.  It is time for Obama and Boehner to wake up to the reality that we are growing perilously close to a European-style financial crisis.  I hope it does not take European-style riots in the streets to get the point across.