Recently, Congress passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for
promises that spending would be cut. Anyone who has paid any attention to the
debate knows it was pretty intense. Tossed about were fears that senior citizens
would not get their Social Security checks this months and that the government
would go into default if those in Washington didn't act quickly. As lawmakers
battled it out over whether to raise taxes, cut spending, or both, the political
rhetoric became as ugly as I've ever seen it.
A common word I've seen
used over and over is "moron." As in, "Those bunch of morons in Washington."
Others have described them as juveniles--spoiled children insisting on their own
way. The enlightened public seems to think that every elected official is a
stupid, lying, crooked moron who doesn't know how to lead and doesn't care about
anyone else. And I'm getting a little weary of that attitude.
First of
all, this country is in a real pickle. We can blame and point fingers all we
want over whose fault that is, but fault-finding doesn't fix the problem. And
the real problem is that there might not be a way to fix the problem. There is
no shortage of ideas out there, but I'm convinced that all of the proposed fixes
would be very painful for the economy. Raise taxes on corporations? That will
lead to lay-offs and price hikes. Slash unnecessary government spending? The
government now supports so many people, either by entitlements or by employment,
that a slash in those services will also lead to more people without work. Say
we did away with superfluous government agencies that happen to employ 50,000
people. That's 50,000 people now looking for a job in an economy that is already
low on good jobs.
So there's no easy fix. There might not even be a fix
at all. We very well could be doomed. That's not very positive, I know, but it
could be the truth. The easiest thing to do would be to close our eyes and stick
our fingers in our ears and pretend that borrowing trillions of dollars every
year that we don't have isn't going to cause any long term problems. We all know
it will, but since we don't know exactly what that will look like, denial seems
like as plausible an option as the others.
Now, as for the enlightened
public who wants to call those in Washington a bunch of morons, I'd like to ask,
what solution would you propose? Keep in mind, these elected officials
probably at the least graduated from college, which would be a rather difficult
feat for a moron. Beyond that, they've had enough intelligence to manage to get
elected to a public office. Usually to get elected to a public office,
especially as far up there as Congress, you have to demonstrate that you can
successfully be in charge of something first. So I think it would be safe to say
that most politicians probably do have more intelligence than the average bear
(although I think the average bear out there probably isn't all that smart.)
Well, you may ask, if they are so intelligent, then why can't they all
agree and come up with a reasonable solution like adults? Because they have very
different ideologies. Their unwillingness to compromise isn't because they are
stupid or childish. It's because a compromise would be completely worthless to
either of them. It's like one group thinks chili soup would solve the worlds
problems and the other group thinks key lime pie is the answer. You can't come
up with a compromise on something that's so completely different or it's going
to taste terrible. Like mixing an acid with a base, you end up with neither,
something that's completely worthless.
And it's not like they can take
turns trying out their ideologies to see which one actually solves all our
country's problems. So then we see the struggle for the chance to implement the
ideologies of two highly intelligent, but very different groups.
Anybody
can sit back and criticize and say what they feel the solution should be. I
guarantee that if any of the people I know who are satisfied with finger
pointing and name calling were in the position that our lawmakers are in, they
wouldn't fare any better. I don't envy their job at all--it's a difficult and
thankless one.
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