Thursday, July 28, 2011

Debt Ceiling

I was going to put a West Wing video clip here, but the... Ooh wait, I lied, score one for the Blogsy app. Moving right along.

Let the record reflect that today I snapped at a US Senator. Al Franken tweeted something that he'd done that I am sure is great for all of us, but I couldn't be bothered to appreciate it. Instead I answered back:

dboevers @alfranken this is stupid right, but I don't really want to hear about anything besides how we're breaking the impasse until it's fixed
about 6 hours ago in reply to alfranken

Not my finest hour, and if by some unbelievable coincidence Senator Franken or anyone from his office stumbles across this post I'd like to apologize for losing my patience.

Can I tell you? I wanted the big deal. I would have celebrated Obama giving away entitlements if we'd seen some revenue enhancements. I don't totally hate the Reid plan (ok, I'm lying I totally hate it, but I can live with it). The Boener plan, wow. And the tea party plan? When they say prioritize do you think they know that what they are proposing leaves no money for anything?

Maybe they do.

Today I came to the end of my rope. I want the President to wheel around with a phaser rifle, break a window and yell at someone.

This far and no further. The "people" Republican freshmen so often cite are no people I know. The people I know think government is a place where people can come together to do great things. The people I know understand that this costs money, and the people I know think it is worth paying for. I don't think we should agree to plan that slowly raises the Medicare entry age, I think we should approve a plan that slowly lowers the Medicare entry age - maybe a year a year for 60 years.

It's true, government should be as small as it needs to be. But there are things we've seen that we do need and we should keep doing those things. And we should always be looking for other things we need. And when we find those things we shouldn't be so irresponsible as to not be realistic about paying for them.

1 comment:

Dr. Michael M. Chemers said...

Hear hear. If more people would lose patience with our lawmakers, as you have, maybe there'd be more accountability. We employ them, but they know that although we may be made up of intelligent individuals, as a great groaning mass we are stupid, shortsighted, lazy, oblivious, and easily distracted. I don't know how we, as smart individuals, can fix this, but I know that sooner or later it will fix itself, and if we're not ready for it it will mean terrible disaster for all of us, and our children.