Welcome to Government By Spoiled Children!

So I read again that Congress is threatening to shut down the government because they can’t reach agreement over how to cover disaster response funding following a series of disasters this year--Joplin, Irene, Lee, etc. Republicans are willing to fund FEMA for what they can document needing but insist that the funds need to come out of existing programs. Democrats predictably argue that any unexpected expenses be covered by more borrowing and increasing the national debt and that they will shut down the govenment rather than pull a dime out of other programs! Sound only too familiar?

This is Congress today as we know it! They refuse to conduct the People's Business anymore because they are too busy playing partisan political games. Both Parties overspend like drug addicts and whenever the American public’s frustration generates more heat than Congress can ignore, Republicans pretend to start looking for areas to cut spending but always fail to sell even the most common sense cuts to the American Public. As their dancing partners, the Democrats invariably pull up the same critical areas of Government: Defense, Disaster Relief, Border Security, Social Security, and Medicare and frame the argument as if these are the ONLY places where funding cuts could POSSIBLY come from--just to guarantee the American public gets as irritated as possible! And it's no different at the State or municipal level folks. Remember Curtis at this year's City Council budget meeting? Paraphrasing because I don't have it in front of me, "We can't possibly make a change to any item of the city's budget without the whole house of cards falling down!" Right! Seriously???

As this charade takes place multiple times a year without effective actions to address the overspending and the lack of a rainy day fund in the first place, both Parties remain clueless to explain why public support for the Tea Party is exploding and why Tea Party supporters seem to be the only people with common sense! All I can say is that if the Republicans are really interested in cutting spending but are unable to convince the American public that there are HUNDREDS of places in the Federal, State, and municipal budgets across the country where the majority of spending is inefficient if not wasteful, going into programs that don’t work or aren’t even needed, or don't fall under the Constitutional responsibility of Government in the first place, the Republican leadership needs to be sacked and sent home! When the Democrats get away with saying that we can't cover emergency Disaster Recovery expenses by cutting wasteful or lower priority spending in countless other programs, and the Republicans are incapable of articulating the absurdity of such a position to the voters, none of these fools deserve to remain in Office. Cut their benefits and cushy retirement programs and send them all back to the private sector to figure out how people really decide between what’s necessary and what’s nice when they have only a set amount of money to work with.

This country desperately needs a Balanced Budget Amendment since the children we elect to represent us only know how to throw temper tantrums whenever We the People tell them we can’t afford everything they can think of!