We’re being told now that it is unlikely Congress will reach agreement on a budget and we’re facing a government shutdown on Friday.
Seriously? We elected these people to conduct the country’s business and instead of doing it, they sit there arguing like children playing “gotcha last,” trying to shoot down each other’s favorite programs, elevate their own, and put a stake in the heart of the other party, all while keeping their eyes on the next election.
Sure, budgeting in hard times is tough. But most folks in America do it every day. And they do it without being able to raise their debt ceilings. With bills looming and creditors at the door, most of them manage to cut their spending somewhere, somehow, and make it through to next month or next year.
Washington politicians are perfectly capable of doing the same thing. Not doing it is simply childish and irresponsible. If they can’t agree on what to cut, maybe they should just cut, say, 10% across the board. No sacred cows, nothing off the table. Cut foreign aid, cut defense, cut education, cut public works, cut Medicare and Medicaid — cut them all by the same percentage.
And if they still can’t agree, there’s always the purely random, guaranteed nonpartisan coin flip. Heads, cut foreign aid. Tails, cut defense. It makes at least as much sense as what they’re doing now.
Assuming, of course, that they can agree on whose coin to use and whether it’s a single flip or the best two out of three. Or three out of five. Or …
My frustration is in their understanding of basic math. A mandatory course in remedial, elementary math might help, but I doubt even that would make a difference because they aren’t spending their own money. We hear that a cut of 165 billion is too drastic. They think cutting their budget by one, one thousands is too drastic. Imagine one of us trying to claim that cutting our budget by one, one thousands was too drastic. Current revenues approximate 200 billion a month. I say – reset the debt ceiling to zero and learn to live with 200 billion a month.
It’s someone else’s money, they can raise the debt ceiling at will, and it’s all perfectly legal. Worse, if there’s a government shutdown, they’ll still get paid. There’s zero incentive for them to behave responsibly.
“There’s zero incentive for them to behave responsibly.”
So right. But IMHO it’s much worse than that. They go out of their way to abdicate responsibility. Younger folks may not realize it but, some years ago some of the larger government programs were funded by “user fees.” Social Security revenues and gasoline tax revenues were once kept separate from general budget revenue in what was called “trust funds” dedicated exclusively to meeting specific future obligations… Social Security payments and transportation infrastructure expenses.
Congress in it’s greed abolished those trust funds and moved those user fees into the general budget account so that they could spend it today on wars and corporate welfare and replace the trust fund cash with IOU’s. The only way to pay those IOU’s now that we’re bankrupt is by either trying to raise taxes, by borrowing more money or asking the FED to counterfeit it. These people are lying thieves — criminals who need to be jailed, not re-elected.