Congress and Pres. Obama: Quit living in denial

by: bonnie alba | published: 03 11, 2011

“Last month’s federal deficit is nearly four times as large as the spending cuts House Republicans have passed in their spending bill, and is more than 30 times the size of Senate Democrats’ opening bid of $6 billion.” ~ Stephen Dinan, Washington Times, March 7, 2010

While Americans are cinching their belts ever tighter on the roller coaster of inflation and stagnant incomes (if they are working), Congress and President Obama play their political fiddles. The complexity of the national budget, deficits and spending is compounded by the political games they play while the country is drowning in debt.

A few billion here and there tossed into the arena under the guise of cutting spending is not what the people voted for in November. Those 75 ‘new bloods’ in the house know it too. It’s the Democrats and the ‘old blood’ Republicans who have a denial problem, what with wringing their hands and performing token cuts for our benefit. Unsatisfactory, ladies and gentlemen.

House Speaker Boehner keeps stating over and over that the people voted for cutting spending, yet he hedges when it comes to actually cutting the deficits and balancing the budget. Of course, first you have to have a budget, which they don’t.

Is it that complex or is it just politics? Is it truth or just lies mixed with sprinkles of truth? Hard to tell these days and exactly why the people cannot trust their government.

Then we have the unions. Made up of people who have grown accustomed to receiving inflated pay and benefits from the taxpayers through the union’s collective bargaining power. When that power is threatened, they leave their jobs, show up in force and mock the taxpayers who want to level the playing field. The unions use the proven influence of the mob mentality, which when prodded correctly, can be driven to erupt in violence to get their way.

It’s all about power and money; in the Wisconsin case, it’s about cutting some, not all, of their bargaining power and actually paying for their own pensions and healthcare. It is about the state government attempting to lower their deficit and do something about their unfunded liabilities which threatens the state’s future stability.

Returning to the issue of the complexity of the centralized federal government, a crash course in economics 101 would not help at this stage. It is obvious that Congress and Pres. Obama are inept at financial planning, budgets, saving for a rainy day, and paying on the debt.

For decades, administrations and congress have enacted and funded enlargement of departments and agencies without any assessment of what’s already in place and possible duplication. Neither have they consulted the Constitution for possible conflict. These are the same people who took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution.

Does anyone remember the 1992 congressional banking scandal? I do. It shocked me, a housewife and mother managing my household on a budget, that people we elected to represent us could just keep writing checks without knowing whether they could afford it or had money in the bank to cover their expenses. (For the younger crowd, checks are what we use to pay bills and buy things; we didn’t have online banking and debit cards.)

Maybe it’s time we send budget-conscious women, wives and mothers, who know how to stretch a penny and have struggled through times of family deprival in order to pay off debt and balance their budgets. They made decisions on whether to buy socks or pants for their children from one month to the next. See my article: Debt’s Truth and Consequences, www.renewamerica.com/columns/alba/100702

These women know where to cut their own budgets -- and they would know where to cut the “fluff” in the federal budget. They would know that there are very difficult decisions to make, cutting expenses in the federal budget, and also in the departments and agencies and programs which wouldn’t please everyone. But that’s the way it is in a family too. Usually when things are tight, the family budget manager makes those difficult decisions with an eye on living within their means.

What is needed is bold, direct and decisive actions which decide the future of our nation. Where are the leaders, fiscally conservative, who will lead?

Congress and Pres. Obama: Quit living in denial -- we can’t afford it.

"No generation has a right to contract debts greater than can be paid off during the course of its own existence." — George Washington to James Madison 1789

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