MESA, Ariz. — These people on “Main Street” of whom the beltway
crowd of legislators and journalists always talk are more than a
little confused over what is going on in Washington.
Mesa, Arizona is a sizable town that has a real street called
“Main.” It really is an extension of another town’s main street
named Apache Trail in Apache Junction. You can find as many “real”
Americans as you want in these two really old American communities.
No matter which watering spot is checked, from Dunkin’ Doughnuts to
Starbucks to the innumerable western bars, no one has the faintest
idea of what’s going on — but they don’t like it.
To begin with, the “folks” on Main Street, as Bill O’Reilly
calls the American people, haven’t a clue as to what is meant by
“making the taxpayer whole.” This term has been used a great deal
in the hearings. Frankly they are most amused at the idea that
there is something called “taxpayer money.” “Ain’t all the
money they got that there taxpayer money?” asks Don. Westerners
prefer the anonymity and friendliness of first names only.
Of course, Don is right. It’s all taxpayer money; there isn’t
any other money other than what the USG gets from taxes, fees and
borrowed cash from flogging U.S. Treasury-backed notes around the
country and all the rest of the world that lets them print up all
those greenbacks. “Aren’t we, the folks, on the hook for all this
stuff in the end, I mean?” he asked. Don seems to have a very good
handle on the credit problem.
They had the Senate Banking Committee on the television in the
Main Street Bar. The Bartender said his regulars liked to shout at
the senators. As true Americans they didn’t discriminate by
political party, though Jim Bunning was the favorite because they
all knew he was a Hall of Fame baseball player and spoke in
non-sequiturs that are closer to real American talk than anything
else. He was against everything and that’s a good start in any
southwestern drinking establishment.
Mesa is a hardworking town. In a way it’s a boomtown, but it
never admits it. It has boutiques and upscale houses as well as
more than its share of trailer camps and illegals. Its county
sheriff enjoys being “the toughest sheriff in the U.S.” What they
are quick to do, however, is stick a verbal pin in pompous
politicians.
The folks stopping off midmorning for a cup of coffee or an
early beer were in general agreement that the Senate Banking
Committee members didn’t seem to know any more than they did. They
weren’t too sure about Secretary Paulson, whose role in the whole
business was unclear to them. They knew he was there representing
the Bush White House and the guy next to him with a beard was a
sort of professor who headed something like the U.S. Federal Bank,
or bank reserve, or something. Close enough in both cases.
PART OF THE CONFUSION was that the TV anchors kept referring to the
personal background of the two Senate witnesses, emphasizing that
Paulson had been for many years the chairman of the investment firm
of Goldman Sachs and that Ben Bernanke was an academic who was an
expert on The Great Depression. Yes, it’s all confusing. Paulson’s
biography was briefly stated as playing football at Dartmouth, then
getting a Harvard MBA, and quickly becoming part of the Nixon staff
in 1970. One middle-aged veteran, still wearing his dog tags,
nursed his pre-lunch beer and muttered, “Draft dodger!” So much for
Paulson in that bar.
The folks don’t know what the economic danger is about which all
the fuss is being made. They know about the fact that people have
been dumping their houses because they couldn’t be sold. They know
there are foreclosure and for sale signs all over the region. They
know that sales are being run everywhere and that supposedly there
is a great deal of unemployment.
Nonetheless, Arizona has 5.6% unemployment through September 1
compared to 6.1% nationwide. Local news carried that quite
prominently. Construction jobs are still available, though most of
the itinerant workers seemed to have diminished in numbers. Prices
at the gas pump are still the main worry for the folks, along with
rising costs at the supermarket. But that’s been the case for quite
a while.
“What’s so damned dire they gotta take that 700 billion and give
it to Wall Street — whatever that is?” Don asks. He didn’t have
the answer and he had been watching the TV for an hour.
Perhaps the Senate Banking Committee should move its meeting to
Main St., Mesa, AZ if its really want some answers. They’d at least
get a good cup of coffee or a cooling beer.
