Politics

David Brooks: ‘Welcome Greece. We are going to be Greece’

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
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Although many hope members of the super committee will reach an 11th hour deal on spending cuts before the November 23 deadline, New York Times columnist David Brooks doubts that any deal will ever be reached, now or in the future. Brooks suspects that the United States is headed toward a fiscal crisis much like that of Greece.

On Friday night’s broadcast of PBS’s “NewsHour,” Brooks said that despite the best possible groundwork being laid to reach a deal, a deal still couldn’t be made.

“Yes, I mean, I’m hearing the exact same thing,” Brooks said. “I think the tragedy of it is, if it was ever going to work, it was going to work under these circumstances. The rules were rigged to make a deal as possible as possible as possible, which is to say there was going to be a clean vote on the House. They were going to meet in private. They had this sword of Damocles hanging over them. And they still couldn’t reach a deal.”

According to Brooks, with this missed opportunity and other missed opportunities over the years – it doesn’t bode well for any deal in the future. And that he says means the United States will eventually face a Greek-like situation.

“And still – and so it’s a history of really 10 or 15 years of potential moments where we could have – somebody could have made a deal with doing some spending cuts, some tax increases, jam it all together in whatever form you want to do,” he continued. “And every think tank has their own version. But the two sides are just too far apart. And as Mark [Shields] says, there is no center. And so, you know, they hope the election will solve it. That is what everybody is saying on the Hill. I’m a little dubious the election – why should this election solve it, when all the other elections haven’t solved hit. So the short answer is, welcome, Greece. We’re going to be Greece.”

Watch:

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As far as a timeframe, Brooks wasn’t specific but said the situation in Greece arriving stateside would ultimately happen.

“I firmly believe that. I think, in 10 years – I don’t know when it will happen, but I’m very pessimistic that we will actually have the sort of deal we need,” Brooks said. “And at some point, what is happening in the Europe will happen here.”