The Christmas season is all about giving, and your federal government is in a generous mood this year. President Obama is trying his best work out a package of tax cuts and new spending with congressional Republicans before the end of the year that would add almost $900 billion to our already massive federal debt over the next five years. Ho, ho, ho!
Their actions lead me to wonder if the people who are running our country are just really stupid or if they simply don’t care that they are driving the country off a financial cliff. Given the fact that they are able to dress themselves, feed themselves, and (usually) speak in complete sentences, I don’t think they can be excused from their actions due to mental incompetence. But I would understand if you disagree.
But did you really expect anything else? It doesn’t seem to matter which party has control of the White House or Congress, they all like to spend money they don’t have and kick the consequences down the road for someone else to deal with.
The recent failure of President Obama’s bipartisan deficit reduction commission is a perfect example of how things work in Washington – everyone agrees that we have a financial crisis but no one has the brass to stand up for the painful measures that need to be taken to pull us out of the ditch.
I’m afraid it’s just unrealistic to expect any government agency with the power to spend an unlimited amount of money to exercise restraint. It is contrary to human nature to expect people to police themselves in this area – especially when their job prospects depend solely on favorable public opinion.
That’s why the only realistic solution to this problem may be to place hard limits on what the federal government is allowed to spend. State and local governments are bound by law to stay within certain spending limits, and it is probably one of the biggest flaws in our US Constitution that some sort of limiting factor was not included to keep federal spending from running amok.
The arguments against such limits being in place usually point out that in times of war or extreme national disaster the federal government needs to have the capability to initiate emergency spending without regard to its current financial standing. It’s a valid point, but exceptions could be made to a federal Balanced Budget Amendment to account for such emergencies, such as allowing for temporary surges in spending when they are approved by a supermajority in Congress.
Of course I’m not the first person to suggest such a thing. But Balanced Budget Amendment proposals usually die a quick death in Congress because, well, can you really expect sitting congressmen to support to a change to the Constitution that would curtail his own power? It’s sort of a Catch-22 situation.
But, there may be another way. While researching the history of proposed Balanced Budget Amendments I learned that Article V of our Constitution states that if the legislatures of two-thirds of US states petition Congress for an amendment on the same subject, Congress is required to call a convention on that subject.
I also learned that between 1975 and 1980, 30 states submitted petitions to congress regarding a Balanced Budget Amendment. (Georgia was one of those states.) Since then, two more states have also submitted similar petitions, leaving us just two states short of forcing Congress to deal with an issue they would much rather sweep under the carpet.
If ever there was an issue tailor-made for the Tea Partiers, I think this is it. I find it hard to believe that we couldn’t get two more states to submit these petitions given the current political climate. There are a lot of pie-in-the-sky ideas out there about how to send a message to Washington about how fed up we are with their spending habits, but this one seems eminently doable to me.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Let everyone serve
The divide that separates what the people who run our government think is important from what most of us actually care about is sometimes almost too vast to comprehend. The raging debate that is going on in Washington right now over the fate of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is a good example of that.
Unless you are a gay person who has dreams of becoming the next Colin Powell, you probably don’t spend a lot of time agonizing over this issue. You are likely more worried about mundane matters like finding a job or (if you are fortunate enough to be employed) holding on to the one you have. But in Washington they have much bigger fish to fry, like deciding whether or not the country is safer if gay soldiers pretend to not be gay.
In case you aren’t familiar with “don’t ask, don’t tell”, it is a compromise passed during the Clinton years that allows gay people to serve in the military as long as they don’t do or say anything that would indicate what their sexual orientation is. Now liberals are pushing the lame duck congress to do away with the rule and allow gay people to serve openly before the government tilts back to the right next year and drives them back into the closet for who-knows-how-long.
Well I have at least one thing in common with the politicians in Washington and that is that I don’t mind getting paid (a lot less than they do of course) to debate trivial matters that most people don’t care about, so I might as well have my say on this.
And my say is this - let them serve openly and without pretense. Frankly I think the change is long overdue. It is patently unfair that heterosexuals are the only ones who have the opportunity to get shot at in the service of their country and it’s high time that gay people enjoy the same privilege. But in my view that should be just the beginning of a more sweeping change to the rules that define who may fight for our country.
We should also immediately do away with the exclusion of women in the military from combat roles. I’m a strong advocate of complete gender equality, and I believe that women should have the same opportunities that men do to experience the thrill of bullets whizzing by their heads and bombs blowing up all around them. Why should men get to have all the fun?
One side benefit of this change would be to encourage married couples to enlist and serve together on the front lines. If women could serve anywhere that men can we would no longer have to fret over military spouses who get “left behind” during war time. Imagine husbands and wives hunkered down in foxholes together – what could be more romantic, not to mention patriotic?
Of course you might wonder who would be taking care of the children if moms and dads are serving on the front lines together. I thought of that too, and I think that once we stamp out discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation, it will be time to address ageism in the military. Once a child reaches an age where they are old enough to go deer hunting (say 13 or 14) they are certainly old enough to “hunt” America’s enemies as well. Sign them up.
And I am not forgetting about Grandpa and Grandma either. There are plenty of seniors who are healthy enough in mind and body to serve our country and it seems unfair to exclude them being able to do so.
Young or old, male or female, gay or straight – it shouldn’t make any difference. The military ought to “look like America.” If an 80 year-old lesbian wants to chase after terrorists in the deserts of Afghanistan, who are we to tell her she shouldn’t have that right?
Unless you are a gay person who has dreams of becoming the next Colin Powell, you probably don’t spend a lot of time agonizing over this issue. You are likely more worried about mundane matters like finding a job or (if you are fortunate enough to be employed) holding on to the one you have. But in Washington they have much bigger fish to fry, like deciding whether or not the country is safer if gay soldiers pretend to not be gay.
In case you aren’t familiar with “don’t ask, don’t tell”, it is a compromise passed during the Clinton years that allows gay people to serve in the military as long as they don’t do or say anything that would indicate what their sexual orientation is. Now liberals are pushing the lame duck congress to do away with the rule and allow gay people to serve openly before the government tilts back to the right next year and drives them back into the closet for who-knows-how-long.
Well I have at least one thing in common with the politicians in Washington and that is that I don’t mind getting paid (a lot less than they do of course) to debate trivial matters that most people don’t care about, so I might as well have my say on this.
And my say is this - let them serve openly and without pretense. Frankly I think the change is long overdue. It is patently unfair that heterosexuals are the only ones who have the opportunity to get shot at in the service of their country and it’s high time that gay people enjoy the same privilege. But in my view that should be just the beginning of a more sweeping change to the rules that define who may fight for our country.
We should also immediately do away with the exclusion of women in the military from combat roles. I’m a strong advocate of complete gender equality, and I believe that women should have the same opportunities that men do to experience the thrill of bullets whizzing by their heads and bombs blowing up all around them. Why should men get to have all the fun?
One side benefit of this change would be to encourage married couples to enlist and serve together on the front lines. If women could serve anywhere that men can we would no longer have to fret over military spouses who get “left behind” during war time. Imagine husbands and wives hunkered down in foxholes together – what could be more romantic, not to mention patriotic?
Of course you might wonder who would be taking care of the children if moms and dads are serving on the front lines together. I thought of that too, and I think that once we stamp out discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation, it will be time to address ageism in the military. Once a child reaches an age where they are old enough to go deer hunting (say 13 or 14) they are certainly old enough to “hunt” America’s enemies as well. Sign them up.
And I am not forgetting about Grandpa and Grandma either. There are plenty of seniors who are healthy enough in mind and body to serve our country and it seems unfair to exclude them being able to do so.
Young or old, male or female, gay or straight – it shouldn’t make any difference. The military ought to “look like America.” If an 80 year-old lesbian wants to chase after terrorists in the deserts of Afghanistan, who are we to tell her she shouldn’t have that right?
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