Guest Columnist David Y. Cantwell: Party politicking works both ways

The recent column by Tina Dupuy amazed me in its attempt to link disapproval with Congress to GOP politics and even McCarthyism. Huh? Using the segue of McCarthyism may be novel but it makes no sense. Let's look closer at that column and broaden the subject to observing where this country is headed.

Yes, Congress has a pathetic rating. This will continue because the average voter thinks Congress stinks but that their representative is good. Changing the political makeup between either of these parties does not bode well for any of us anyway. Here's why.

If the Democrats were in total control they would pursue their version of government, regulating or nationalizing everything that they think people should have (housing, food, healthcare, etc.). This would fail as it is an absolute contradiction to human nature. Further, there is no example in human history where a few controlling the masses has ever produced anything positive. But the leftist brain trust believes you can create a utopia by taxing the productive and/or saddling them with regulations to the benefit of everyone else. Somehow, they think it is evolved, or even noble to forcibly take someone else's property to benefit another. Forcibly? Yes. For those readers that pay income tax, try not paying it and see what happens.

The Republicans in control? Not so different. Look at what happened under Bush. With Congressional help, he broke spending records (only to be broken again by Obama - see a trend here?). Plus, recently we have the elites in business work with government to get special favors (think of GE using lobbyists to get special laws passed so that they don't pay tax!). It's crony capitalism with a touch of fascism.

What do we face today? Reckless spending and a lot of politicking about the debt ceiling. Both parties state that if we don't increase the ceiling we will default, lose our credit rating and cause world economic mayhem to ensue. Nonsense. Should they fail to raise the ceiling the Constitutional mandate is that the debt be paid. (Then again, neither party nor the Supreme Court have a track record upholding the Constitution). What would be untenable is that Congress would have to do their job and allocate the money left over. This is not politically possible.

I expect the Republicans to fold on the debt ceiling (probably in the name of national security or some other excuse) and the U.S. government will continue to overspend, supported by the continued debasement of our currency. If so, at some point, the system will collapse.

• David Y. Cantwell is an executive vice president of Jones Lang LaSalle, an international commercial real estate firm. He lives in Genoa.