Pelosi To The Rescue!

The current debt ceiling/deficit debate going on is important to be sure.  I've been doing a lot of ranting and raving about it for days now.  I must thank the former speaker, however, for adding some much needed levity with the comment,

"What we’re trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget . . . We’re trying to save life on this planet as we know it today."

Oh, don't I wish!  I wonder if she has a clue how idiotic that sounds.  It's right up there with her comment when health care passed; she said we could then all read it and find out what was in it!  To think this woman is one of the most powerful in the country.

Oh well, a good belly laugh now and then is good for the soul.  Forget the flaws in the Republican plan - and the Democratic plan.  Or that neither side trusts the other to keep their word. The problem is where both parties have taken us with their unlimited spending spree.

Somehow I just don't see Nancy saving us from what she herself and others like her have done to the country.  Life as it is today isn't so great when you consider the unemployment rate, the housing crunch,  the cost of gas and food and the humility thrust upon us by the TSA to mention a few.

Do us a favor Ms. Pelosi.  Don't bother.  As for the rest of the world?  Do it a favor and leave it alone.  They've managed to muck things up for themselves just as well, if not better, than we have, but the last thing they need is our help.  It would be like someone with a face full of Botox being asked to furrow their brow!

Politics As A Double Negative

As the debate over deficit reduction and debt ceiling drags on, I've drawn a couple of conclusions from recent reading.  Let me try them out on you.

 Let me address the members of congress who got there on the strength of tea party support first.  The more I see of them and listen to them the more I am convinced none of them could have gotten elected left to their own devices. Without tea party support they had nothing to offer against their opponents, especially other Republicans, except they were smart enough to know capitalizing on tea party issues could do the job.

For some it didn't work.  Thank heavens.  For too many others it did.  I sense they haven't a clue about how government works.  I also think they are deluded if they really believe they were elected to do the very thing they were to be against,  diminishing this country to the level of Europe. That's what their refusal to compromise on these debates is doing.  And, it's what Obama wants - for us to be on an equal level with Europe and no longer the leader that had been our destiny.  They were not elected to be obstructionists, but to find solutions.  The country was to come first, not ideology!

The more moderate Republicans are afraid of being 'primaried' by the likes of Grover Norquist who runs around with his 'pledges', threatening to run candidates against them if they don't sign.  Any politician who does is foolish.   Norquist is a self-appointed arbiter of what's good for all of us. Why anyone pays him any attention is beyond me but enough do and they fear him.

Hand in glove with all this, and my second theory, is the idea that public office should not be any one's career goal.  It wasn't intended that way, yet when I look at how office holders prostitute themselves to rise in the leadership ranks turns my stomach.

When George Nethercutt wrote recently about the climb to leadership, he had this to say.

When a member chooses a career path to congressional leadership, a member's independence is often compromised in favor of the leadership team, and the member's constituents are sometimes left behind.

Could anything be more damning?  I think not.  It gives you a pretty good idea what congressional leadership is all about.  Themselves.  What about the country?  What country.  Nothing exists outside of Washington.  Except the rest of the world.

Maybe, as has been suggested in times of frustration about the middle east,  we should build a fence around them so they can't get out and leave them to their own devices.

We, the people would have to do it though.  Those folks in Washington can't even get a secure one build along our border!

Pass the debt ceiling!  The next congress isn't beholden to anything the current one does anyway.  The deficit can't be fixed without a budget.  There is no budget.  Continuing resolutions do nothing more than extend spending at current levels and solves nothing.

Do I sound angry?  I am.  Thoroughly fed up with all the posturing and politicking on all sides including the President.

They all need to grow up and start thinking about the country as a whole.  And so do we, the voters, because we're the ones who put them in office and keep them there.

Whatever happened to "duty, honor, country"?  Especially country.  It starts with a 'C'.  Not an 'R' or a 'D'.

Debt Versus Deficit

Politics.  That's what we've been witnessing.  The politics of re-election, not what's good for the country regardless  of what either the Republicans or Democrats would have you believe. In all it's self serving ugliness.

Blame is owned by both.  The Democrats for not having passed a budget for two years.  To use their term, continuing resolutions are no more than 'kicking the can down the road.'

The Republicans, on the other hand, are trying to tie two different problems together.  Let's look at debt first. We all carry debt.  Credit cards, car payments, mortgages, etc.  Anything you owe on is debt.  The same holds true for government.  It isn't just social security and medicare and military salaries.  It's everything from Boeing to the companies who make bullets for the troops.  The debt ceiling is how much we can afford to charge.

Deficit then is obviously when we spend more money than we've budgeted.  Of course actually having a budget helps.  But how many of us do and what happens when the bank sends you an insufficient funds notice?  Pay up.  What if you can't?  Default?  Bankruptcy?

So as I see the issues, Congress ought to raise the debt limit the absolute minimum amount needed to run the government for a year.  Then write a budget cutting what is feasible from the morass of programs out there and/or the programs themselves.  But in an orderly manner.

They keep talking about a Constitutional amendment to balance the budget.  That isn't likely to happen.  They should, however, make passing an annual budget mandatory.  Before spending dime one!

Both sides have muddied the water so much it's hard to sort it all out.  There have been cries for there to be adults in the room.  Don't be fooled by exasperated sighs and head shaking.  They are all acting like spoiled children.  My way or the highway.  The President has not put forward concrete ideas.  The Republicans, lead by the tea party caucus, are being bull headed over the tax part of the issues.  Closing loopholes should not be considered tax hikes. It's an exploitation of poorly written laws and should be eliminated.  Laws, by the way, written by Congress.

Congress can point fingers at the President all they want, but it shouldn't be forgotten they are the ones who voted to spend beyond our limits in the first place.  Both parties.  Over years.

What goes around comes around.  Now they've been hoisted on their own petard - of greed.

Is there anyone out there who will really put country first?  Oh, yes.  The young men and women who are still being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  They understand the concept.  They have no lobbyists nor unions to bloat their salaries or benefits.  They just love their country - enough to  be willing to sacrifice their lives for it.

Politicians - take note.