Column : A cliff hanger

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Meghnad Desai : Nov 05 2012, 02:33 IST

Hurricane Sandy permitting, on Tuesday November 6, there will be voting across the US to choose members of the Congress and the President of the US. Hopefully, the voter participation will be full and the postal votes already cast will not be overly decisive. An election campaign that started in a rather dull fashion has been ignited since Obama’s failure to sparkle at the first debate. Now every little shortfall in economic numbers looks menacingly large. Every idiosyncrasy in Obama’s style grates. It looks like the election is going to the wire and who knows who will be taking the oath on January 22, 2013.

Yet this does not really matter as far as the most serious problem facing the US is concerned. This is the budgetary problem. It is more the results of the Congressional elections that matter in this respect and not the identity of the winner in the Presidential election. In that respect, the present state of the two Houses is unlikely to change. The Democrats will continue to command a majority in the Senate, barring a landslide for the Republicans, which does not look very likely. The House of Representatives will continue to be controlled by the Republicans come hell or high water. Whether Obama or Romney wins will make no difference to the gridlock that will result.

The US faces the problem of tackling its budgetary deficits. In good times and bad, for the last 30 years, the US has run a budget deficit except for the

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