Drifting....

 

 

 

"In a car, it can be cool - in running the country, not so much..."

One of the latest trends in motor sports is "drifting". It is a stunt only to be tried by the more experience drivers. To "drift" a turn is to be on the edge of control. The effect can be eye popping or end up in a wreck.

When I was younger, if you were not paying attention, it was sometimes referred to as "drifting". In fact, a term used on occasion for someone who often appeared to be "out of it" or not paying attention was "drifty". It was a term I would use at times in front of my parents and my Dad loved it. He ended up using it more than I did.

However, the term "drifting" can also be used to describe how the county is being run these days. When my family was younger and occasionally things would "spin out of control", I would put up the "halt" sign and ask "Okay, what are we doing here?" It was a chance for everyone to get re-grounded. Right now when I look at what a total mess our country is in, I ask the same question - "What ARE we doing here?"

This is not just a dig at the President, but also many of our legislative leaders on both sides of the aisle. We are drifting badly - some even say our Ship of State is adrift. We have more problems than Carters has pills and nobody, I mean nobody is doing a damn thing to solve them. This entire Syrian fiasco was just a distraction. Pure and simple. If we really cared about the Syrian people, we would have done SOMETHING two years ago, before over 100,000 Syrians lost their lives.

Lets recap why we are drifting:

• Health care - What a cluster. It either needs to be totally repealed or major, major surgery. Even the Unions are trying opt out now as the hand writing is on the wall. We are going to pay a whole lot more to get a whole lot less.
• Jobs - This month our workforce participation dropped to an astonishing 63.6%! This is a huge problem. Why are we not hearing about it? The press believes this is our "new norm". The unemployment numbers are abysmal, but the U3 unemployment rate keeps dropping because the number of people in the workforce keeps dropping. Most new jobs being created are part time, seasonal, or service related. Result - poverty is on the rise.
• Debt - We have now been conditioned to ignore the whole debt issue. $17T and growing. The Administration got tired of some of us squawking about the debt, so they simply turned off the debt clock. See - problem solved. Ignore it, and it will go away. We are preparing a nice table for our kids to feast on Greek food, and have the same financial after effects as the people in Greece are now having.
• Hunger - I sometimes have to pinch myself to see if I am dreaming. I can't believe the number of people who are hungry in this country. Rather than curing the disease, we continue to triage the patient with food stamps and free school lunches. If this trend continues, 90% of all Americans will be on some kind of food assistance by 2050. How can we feed the world when we can't even feed ourselves? 
• Education - As we continue to allow our schools to be held hostage by the self serving teacher's unions, we continue to fail many of our kids by sticking them in failing schools. We know the change which is needed, but nobody seems to have the male parts to initiate it. Many of our colleges have turned into expensive gulags run by the most liberal of thinkers. Kids graduate deeply in debt and ill prepared to compete in a growing world economy.

Many are concerned this Syrian event could neuter our President for rest of his term. You know - like nothing more can get done. Well folks, nothing is getting done, with or without Syria. We are drifting, we are off course, we are lost. Once, as Ronald Reagan put it, "we are the City on a Hill, for all to see." Today, we have become no more than a town in a sinkhole. We need somebody, somebody, to grab the wheel and stop the drift. Remember, sometimes "drifting" results in a wreck.