Money vs. Power

This coming Tuesday, August 9th, will be one week since the United States came to the brink of "financial default." Thanks to an eleventh hour decision, the "crisis" was averted.  It is hard to pick winners and losers in this event; the right wingers are just as mad as the left wingers.  The decision seems to be to add $2.4 Trillion to the debt ceiling while calling for $900 Billion in cuts with a "super congress" to decide on another $1.2 Trillion.  What a deal!?

With all this bickering about small-government, the job-creators, the middle-class, entitlement programs, and everyone paying their fair share, I began to wonder about what's really behind all this.  If one were to boil down the agenda of the right and left into one word or concept, what would it be?  To me, its ultimately about money and power.  Now, to be fair, this is certainly an oversimplification, but hear me out. The right wants to cut government in order to cut taxes in order to keep "their" money;  the left wants to keep government, keep taxes (or even raise them), and keep programs and agencies to maintain control.

So with the right, its all about money, with the left its all about power.  So the question then becomes, which saying is ultimately right? "the love of money is the root of all evil" or "absolute power absolutely corrupts."