Published: July 03, 2008 11:42 pm            

Stan Champer: How’d we arrive at the mess we’re in?

I’ve never been able to follow debates about the national economy and come away with a conviction about what helps and what hurts. I’d have more luck, I think, deciphering hieroglyphics.

How do you come to grips with it? Democrats tell us that flawed theories are at the core of the Republican approach, and Republicans say it’s the Democrats’ position that’s full of holes.

Does anybody really understand it?

Over the years, I’ve come to believe there are no ironclad answers. I believe the U.S. economy is so huge and complex that all we have to define it are conflicting theories.

Otherwise, we wouldn’t be forever debating it. We’d have a Healthy Economy Manual that sets forth the one and only tried and true approach, and all of our lawmakers would always vote in a manner that supports that approach.

Despite the occasional gibe, these people aren’t stupid.

Unfortunately, no one has committed to writing a plan that’s guaranteed fail safe, a plan about which you can say the whole thing is based on fact without even the hint of theory.

If someone has done that, I haven’t heard about it.

Which takes us right back to the I’m-right-you’re-wrong political bluster, the banner waving of the guys who believe they have the answer and the finger pointing at past failures on both sides.

The more I hear it, the more I’m sure there’s a whole lot more “hope it’ll work” in what the politicians offer than there is “know it’ll work.”

I wish someone could finally nail it down, and quickly. While the forever ongoing debate rages today, the big problems we currently have in the economy are becoming more and more dismal.

Someone like me might not be able to explain how we got to where we are, but you need no special insight to know it’s a mess. All you have to do is keep your eye on the needle as it climbs higher and higher on the Misery Meter.

People are getting hit on all sides. The spiraling cost of oil, leading to $4-plus-per-gallon prices at the gas pump, has snaked into other areas of the economy and sent the pocketbook drain into lunar orbit.

It’s the same story in household after household. The budget doesn’t stretch nearly far enough. The squeeze on working families is leaving them just enough — maybe — to pay the bills, and feeling lucky if they are able to accomplish even that.

That dreaded visitor, the Big Hurt, has settled in — in homes across the country, in small businesses, on family farms, in agencies that try to help the poor — everywhere and with no mercy.

Beginning Sunday, this newspaper will publish a series of stories about some of our fellow Kentuckians who are getting hammered. The series was produced by CNHI News Service, operated by the newspaper group that publishes The Independent and several other papers in the state.

The series is called “PAIN — At The Pump and Beyond.” You may be surprised to learn just how widespread effects of the fuel crisis have been, in what ways they’re coming down on the shoulders of our neighbors, and what people are doing in an ever more difficult effort to cope.

I imagine these folks are not too unlike me when it comes to understanding the workings of the national economy. But you can bet they know the feeling when it’s not working, and know it all too well.

STAN CHAMPER can be reached at schamper@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2640.

        

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