Walter Patterson Herald ColumnistCommon sense is a rare and elusive quality among many Democrats.
The country is broke, the Republicans want to trim $61.5 billion from a $1.62 trillion budget, and President Obama and Harry Reid want to shut down the government. Their polling data seems to indicate that the American people will blame the Republicans and thus, raise Obama’s poll numbers, which continue to slip.
The money the Republicans want to cut for the next six months is literally “chump change.” Every Democrat on the hill should be esthetically falling in line to vote for this package. If nothing is done, this country’s financial system will literally collapse - sooner rather than later. We owe $14.2 trillion already, and the budget that Obama submitted earlier this year calls for the United States to go in debt $1.6 trillion dollars per year for the next ten yeas. Everyone with an ounce of common sense knows that we cannot sustain this rate of debt.
However, we have that same old problem with far-left Democrats. Nancy Pelosi wants to increase spending because she claims that old folks will have no food, no medicine, no access to doctors, and consequently, thousands will die. No one has ever accused Pelosi of having common sense. She is an extremist who wants to change America into a socialist European state.
Democrat Harry Reid can only be described as a gutless wonder. He is no leader. He is a puny little man whose ego distorts his mentally challenged mind. The House of Representatives passed HR 1. This was the budget the Democrats failed to pass before October 1, 2010. Since the Democrats did not pass a budget, something that is required by our Constitution, the House of Representatives led by Republicans initiated a new budget. The hapless Harry Reid has yet to bring this budget up in the Senate. He is content to let the country go broke, and shut down governmental services including failure to pay our military personnel.
Of course, the President has shown absolutely no leadership. He, too, wants the government to shut down because he thinks this will make him look like a strong leader. Have I mentioned the word “common sense?”
The Deficit Reduction Commission, which was appointed by Obama, made several important recommendations that would help in getting our financial house in order. Common sense tells us that what we are doing will bring on a Depression, a point not overlooked by this commission. Financial experts agree that in the near future, if the size of government and our ever-increasing debt is not brought under control, we, as a nation, will be unable to continue as a world power. One expert has even used the phrase, “third world nation.”
Mr. Obama does not seem to grasp the serious problem this country is facing. Anyone with common sense would be working night and day to try to solve this problem before the “train wreck” occurs. The man in Washington right now who is demonstrating common sense and leadership is Congressman Paul Ryan. He has developed a budget, which will save this country from insolvency. Over the next ten years, his budget will save the taxpayers more than four trillion dollars. His budget sets our country on a course to be debt free in 20 years. That is about the time that our grandchildren will be moving into the workforce and starting families of their own.
The Democrat extremists in congress who failed to pass a budget of their own are now demagogueing Paul Ryan’s budget. They have pulled out the same old worthless Democrat playbook and have begun to say that Republicans want to starve old people, do away with Social Security and Medicare, and defund programs such as Head Start and the School Lunch Program. Nothing is true about any of these assertions. Ryan is simply trying to get the country back to 2008 spending levels.
What does common sense tell us? It is simple. Unless we make drastic changes in the way we spend money, we will become insolvent as a nation, and programs like National Public Radio, the National Endowment for the Arts, and yes, Social Security, Medicaid, funding for education, and other programs so popular with Democrats will be just memories. The United States of America will no longer be able to pay its bills.
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