The debts deal's failure by Fareed Zakaria - Essay Example

?An Analysis of the Time Magazine Article “The Debt Deal's Failure” by Fareed Zakaria When Fareed Zakaria wrote the article “The Debt Deal's Failure”back in the latter part of 2011, he did so mostly from what I believe to be a staunch Democratic supporter point of view. However, I would be lying if I did not say that he changed his point of view towards the latter of the article and instead, finally developed the eye of a basic American whose life has been adversely affected by the current economic crisis. One must note before reading the aforementioned article that Mr. Fareed Zakaria is not your run of the mill reporter, observer, or opinion columnist. He is a highly regarded member of the journalistic field whose credentials include being the host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria, editor at large of Time Magazine, an all too important columnist of The Washington Post, and author of such famous works as The Post American World and The Future of Freedom. Mr. Zakaria started off his argumentative essay by presenting the facts as he knew them to be true to his readers. The information that he presented, about the filibustering in the legislative house and the constant bickering between the Republican and Democratic parties on the floor was information that could easily be gleaned from reading the newspapers or watching the daily news shows. The information that our debt ceiling was being held hostage by politics was something that came as surprisingly new for most of us. Mainly because we had always been used to seeing these two parties managing to find some middle ground within which to work from for the benefit of many. Sadly, it seems that the era of old, open communication, and amicable settlement politics is now an era of the past. These days, our national politics is, according to Zakaria (The Debt Deal's Failure, Time Magazine) has become a world wide failure because we can no longer make our political system work for ourselves. He continues to explain how our debt crisis would have been solved during the time of Reagan, Clinton and other previous American leaders: This is how Congress used to work: grand bipartisan bargains to solve difficult problems with compromises by both sides. This is not nostalgia. It is how the system worked in the 1980s and '90s to save Social Security, reform the tax code, rationalize immigration policy and close hundreds of military bases. (Zakaria, Fareed, The Debt Deal's Failure) Mr. Fareed does his utmost best within the article in order to present even the most complicated of economic discussions in terms that lay people such are ourselves can easily understand. He has a grasp of the current economic situation that allows him to present a highly readable and focused piece that in the end, allows the reader to contemplate the reality of our economic situation locally and its effects on our nation worldwide. That is not an easy task for somebody as highly educated as Mr. Fareed and yet he manages to pull it off with each written paragraph in his commentary. He does not try to sway his reader towards one politicial inclination or another, he merely provides all of the information that he has on hand to help his reader come to certain conclusions on his own. The Debt Deal's Failure (Zakaria, Time Magazine) does its best to present an unbiased opinion on the topic. It however, fails dismally in that aspect because Mr. Zakaria makes it very clear from the get go that he is a firm believer in the economic programs of the Democrats and that the Republicans should be viewed as the bad guys who ran our economy into the ground. He often does argumentative analysis of the performance of the presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and finally Barack Obama in relation to increasing our countries debt woes. I find it quite disturbing that he was able to present factual data on the spending and borrowing for the Republican presidents but then failed to do the same for the Democrat president. It is highly impossible that our debt managed to balloon into the trillions of dollars that it is today without at least a little participation from then president Bill Clinton. Since this article was originally written in August of 2011, long before the Super Committee of President Obama went into active negotiation status and then failing to come up with a viable long term debt solution, I can safely say that the article lacks the most current and up to date information regarding the moves on both political sides to end the debt ceiling crisis. Although, that is not to say that the information contained within Mr. Zakaria's article is not factual. On the contrary, it was truly factual and an actual, accurate basis for his reports and observations at the time. The facts and figures that he presented to the reading public were actually a matter of public record and therefore, added to the sense of authority and accuracy of his report. In a certain way, one might surmise that Mr. Zakaria has presented a number of Historian's Fallacies in the presentation of his article as he seems to continue to assume that just because Republicans and Democrats have always treated our country's economic problems in certain specific ways throughout the history of our country, they will continue to do so without change. This is something that he tried to present in his comparison of debt spending between Reagan, Clinton, and Bush. In the end, his argumentative article can be seen as a plea from one man to his country's leaders to stop the bleeding and the bickering because it is not proving to be beneficial to anyone involved. Rather, the man made obstacles towards finding a viable solution to a very man made problem should be removed. America after all, was once the only remaining super power in the world whose word was his bond. These days, our word as a nation sends worries down the spines of our international lenders and that, is the sad truth of our current existence as a country as Mr. Zakaria worriedly pointed out. Works Cited Zakaria, Fareed. “The Debt Deal's Failiure”. Time Magazine. 4 Aug. 2011. Web. 20 Feb. 2012. Read More