Unchecked and Unbalanced: Cutting Congress

America has often been referred to as an experiment in democracy; sometimes as the great experiment. While we tend to think of this experiment and ourselves as starting the experiment with the birth of the nation, it started earlier when various immigrant/pilgrim groups sought out the new lands to find their way to freedom and opportunity. Yes and in some cases to seek the possibility of becoming rich from the bounty of the new world. And it worked. America became great and powerful, its people became free and prosperous, and some found riches beyond all expectations.

America and Americans did this by taking risks, by stepping up to challenges, and tackling whatever problems confronted our path forward. Sometimes we did this reluctantly, sometimes we leapt before we looked, and sometimes we brought the problems upon ourselves. And in almost no instance was America without its constituencies that opposed one another on either the issue or the solution.

Today we face a tsunami of problems threatening to inundate our freedoms, our economy and even our very sense of America. Most of the problems are neither obscure incomprehensible threats to our way of life, nor are the America people disinterested in how we as a nation will choose to face the onslaught of these problems.

One of the largest seismic threats to America is the wave of debt our country has naively and blithely not only allowed to grow, but also for which Americans have rejected any recognition of responsibility for and where we hold no one to be accountable. Even as Congress has belatedly begun to take up the task of addressing the economic wave about to wash over America, they do so with the self-interest driven political perspectives and without any informed comprehension of the consequences of their feeble and inept approaches for addressing the problem.

Those in Congress who do not see the necessity of major reductions in spending because it conflicts with their political support; and are willing to sacrifice the promise of America rather than make the effort or seek the council of those who could find and offer meaningful changes to our profligate ways. There are also those members of Congress, the rabid hatchet wielders, who want to radically cut the budget; but only in those areas that they deem unacceptable with their political views. And then there are those in Congress who talk a good story and advocate that we need to cut significantly and everything has to be on the table; but then they run out of specifics. They don’t of course run out of talk! You’ve heard the rhetoric: We’re here to lead the nation out of this disaster. And then we hear: We are waiting for the administration to make its proposal on how to reduce the budget in an acceptable manner. Certainly the type of strong and focused leadership that the country needs before the raising wave crests over their (and our) heads.

The concept of budget cutting is clearly not a difficult approach for Congress to discover. In fact, much like our democratic truth, it is a self-evident solution. Unfortunately, much like that democratic ideal, that self-evidence is not sufficient. Cutting may be the act required, but just cutting does not save the patient. Congress, unlike medical students, don’t seem to know that you have to understand what you’re cutting, why you’re cutting it and how this will help cure the patient.

I don’t actually expect our representatives to be capable of this task. Most have achieved successful political careers not because they are wise, intelligent or capable individuals. They don’t possess a vision for how to create governmental programs and policies that relate to fiscal responsibility; and they couldn’t conceive of developing new approaches to government that go beyond the immediate need for personal control that they believe is the answer to all things political and all things in general.

Cutting the budget may be a first step, but if taken alone just to take the first step doesn’t mean Congress is on the right path. A cutting Congress is just another blind step into the future without any leadership and without any achievement. This is not taking the risk that our forefathers took, and this is not the promise of America.