Debt and Leadership

 

 

"We have seen the enemy and it is us..."

For those who might now have heard the news, the House, led by Speaker Boehner, folded like a cheap suit yesterday when agreeing to extend the debt ceiling. During political squabbles, the talking heads are always trying to access winners and losers. Let me help on that on. Every person who agreed to raise our unsustainable debt ceiling is a Loser (with a capital "L"). And the American public are losers as they have no leadership in Washington looking out for them.

So where does this now leave us? In "nowhereville", as the expression goes. Our President, who when a Senator stood in the well of the Senate and blasted GWB for wanting an increase to the debt ceiling, is now the biggest cheerleader for raising it.

• Our national debt now stands at $17.362T. That number by itself should take one's breath away.
• Our debt goes up $2.40 billion per day.
• This fiscal year, our deficit is projected to be almost $300B. Even though the deficit is coming down, the debt continues to grow.
• According to the National Debt Clock, our debt on this day four years from now will be somewhere between $19.6T and $21T, depending on whose predictions you believe. Not one living soul is predicting it will go down, even a penny.
• Nobody is suggesting a "grand bargain" anymore to address our runaway entitlement spending. We had all better break the bad news to our kids - the "boomers' will be the last generation before the insolvency on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Many marvel about the success of the Tea Party. The truth is, at the grass roots level, this country still has some very sound thinking and leadership. However for some reason, we send people with little moral conviction to represent us in Washington. Even those who leave home clean, become dirty in short order once reaching the Capitol City. The bottom line - we have no leadership in Washington. None. We flying in a plane with drunk pilots, and we are helpless to do anything.

To the President, the Speaker and the Senate Leader, thank you. Thank you for once again selling us down the river. Oh, a hard rain is going to fall - don't worry about that. You will be out of office by that time, living the easy "1%" life of a rich, retired Washington politician. The rest of us? We will just be searching for the crumbs.