Have you noticed how many times in the last few yearsthe politicians of Washington waited to the last minute to vote on key legislation barely averting a government shutdown? The tactic of take it or leave it brinkmanship is not new, but I don't recall it being used so often as it has been in recent years. The 2011 budget, which should have been passed by Sep 30, 2010, was kicked down the road by weeks at a time for all of 2011. The Debt Ceiling was lifted at the very last minute. In each of these cases, the vote offered no time for negotiations. The choice was to support all the earmarks, ie. pork, or be responsible for shutting down the government.
The 2012 Budget, which should have been passed no later than Sep 30, 2011 is currently being held up because the House is pushing for a full year extension of a Social Security Tax cut, as the POTUS said he wanted, until the House said they would push for it, and the Senate didn't. Now, the Senate has decided they won't even work on a compromise until the House approves what they've voted down. The bully tactics of the Senate Millionaires club are pretty bold, based primarily in a belief that voters will blame the majority party of the House, rather than the majority party of the Senate.
The most basic, most routine responsibility of Congress is to develop and approve the Annual Budget of the Federal Government. This isn't some surprise to the members of Congress. They know they have to do it every year. They know it is due by 30 September every year. There is no reason that this shouldn't be worked out well ahead of the deadline. And there is no legitimate reason for the Budget to include money for researching why Monkeys fling dung or preservation of the history of video games.
And a year ago, Pelosi's Congress found that the 2011 Budget was less important than putting gays in the military and pushing through mandated purchase of Health Insurance (i.e. "Health Care Reform") by individual Americans. And even that2000+ page piece of legislation used last minute votes to get it passed. Pelosi told us that we had to pass it to find out what it says. One of the sponsors admitted he didn't have time to read it, because he was only one lawyer and he'd need to be two lawyers with a lot more time on his hands to have been able to read it. We still don't know who actually wrote it, but we do know it was the politicians who sponsored, since they didn't even read it, much less write it.
Senate Majority Leader Reid has been very quiet since he was nearly voted out of office and his party lost the House of Representatives. House Minority Leader Pelosi has been quiet since she came to grips with no longer being the Speaker. The party is more than willing to allow the electorate to think it's the other party that controls Congress.
How will the current round of brinksmanship end? We won't know until the last minute if the House will cave or the Senate will cave in. That's how brinksmanship works. The politicians are playing a game of high stakes poker and both sides are betting that they have the Ace in the Hole, that the American Voters will blame the "other party" for the last minute shutdown, if it comes. They are both looking back to the Bush Sr era, when a DNC Congress shut down the government until Bush Sr agreed to a tax increase, breaking a campaign promise. They are looking to the Gingrich Congress, which balanced the Budget, and Clinton got the credit for it. They both think they can use that as did the DNC Congress to pin the blame on the other party.
The brinksmanship needs to stop. The first order of business from May through September of each year needs to be passing a Federal budget. It is time to end the endmarks. It is time to end spending on "nice to have" things like solar panels. It is time to fund the Military.
It is not the time to be cutting Troops or transferring DoD budgets from F-35 fighter-bombers to overpriced Chinese made solar panels. Even if the cost of buying 20 years of power in the form of "green energy" were cheaper than maintaining the current power generation, which it is not, this is not the time to be paying for the next 20 years of energy.
It is not the time to be borrowing money from China to give to them in Aid and purchasing their goods at the expense of US Factories, and US Workers.
With Our Troops stretched thin and unemployment falling below 9% only because people are giving up, this is not the time to tell the Troops to rest up in the unemployment lines. Already, Our Veterans are unemployed at rates higher than even the high national average. As long as one Veteran is employed, the unemployment rate for Veterans will never reach triple digit percentages, but it remains in double digits. That is primarily a function of the disconnect between Our Civilians and Our Veterans, and the fears inflicted in Our Civilians by the MSM.
Our Veterans are the highest quality employees a company could hire, but too many Americans have bought the lie that Our Troops should be feared, that they might "go postal" due to PTSD. The NYTWits have been pushing that line for years.
End the political brinkmanship. End the Earmarks. End the cuts in Troop Strength. Stop spending Taxpayer money frivously. The Carter Depression ended when Reagan rebuilt the military, not when Clinton cut it.
Stumble It!
