Congress: Lost in A-Maze-ment of Their Own Making

Republican or Democrat, Tea-Party or Independent, House or Senate, crusty 50 plus year tenured old farts or bright shiny brand spanking new first-timers, conservative or liberal; our elected surrogates are wandering hither and yon in their quest to find an answer to the national budget, deficit and debt. Some know how to solve the problem, they campaigned on its promise, they tell everyone who has a microphone that ‘we must cut deeper to be successful’, and they refuse to support bills that don’t cut deep enough to do the job. But they don’t actually know what to do! It’s easy to say: “Cut spending”. But they find themselves lost in a labyrinth of special interest, sacred cows, powerful constituencies, political ideologies, and party allegiances that confound them at every turn. As they wander about in their corridors of power seeking to cut their way (and our way) back to an economic nirvana that never actually existed, they persist in twisting and turning their way from dead-end to dead-end.
Grasping at any opportunity to slice some budget item that doesn’t fits their clear-eyed, far-seeing, albeit obstructed view of the world. And wonder of wonders, our stalwart adventurers stumble forward with their budget fighting toolkit. Unfortunately, their tools are rather crude and simple implements that are based on the same methods and techniques used previously by their ancient colleagues and long-gone predecessors. Cut this, hack that, use an axe on that over there, and prune something back to the stub. The simplicity of the implements is somewhat required as our heroes don’t possess the skills or knowledge to use more powerful and effective tools. Besides would we really want to put powerful tools in the hands of the ill-prepared, ill-informed and ill-suited to address a problem which they don’t fundamentally comprehend? Oops! We seem to have found ourselves on the horns of the proverbial dilemma. Our congressional elite many not have access to or knowledge about superior methods for handling our fiscal problems, but we have placed the inmates in-charge of the asylum and armed them with weapons of mass disruption.

Well, here are some hints for our maze-bound legislatures. Recognize that your own favorite entitlement program (for those legislatures who are easily confused [all of them]; that’s the one you support, not the one you hate) is a major source of the problem. So Social Security and Medicare need to be reduced, but if you restructure rather than just reduce you can improve the program rather than impair it. And for our die-hard patriotic congress-persons who ever eager to defend America, the entitlement program for the Defense department needs to be re-vamped not just to save money but to revitalize the military-industrial complex’s focus on delivering the best equipped, trained, and capable military without undermining the very economic system that it depends upon. For those who want to reduce burdens of Government regulations, replace regulatory-based enforcement approaches with financial reward/penalty-based incentives to achieving public policy.

In short, we live in the 21st century. We haven’t lived here before, and wanting to go back is not the path to our future. America has always benefited when we have chosen to move forward, to strive for better way than those of the past; and to now and again remember that you must sacrifice when necessary and accept responsibility when required, if you wish to have a claim on freedom and democracy.