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Over the past ten years, congress has raised the federal debt limit ten times. Ten for ten points beyond mismanagement to addiction. Unrestrained addiction ends in self-destruction. Number eleven thus offers a make-or-break moment for America.
Our elephants and donkeys have been busy this past decade. The Patriot Act’s temporary 4th Amendment betrayals were hardened into permanent policy. We’re trapped in three military entanglements and the unemployment rate has risen to a sobering 9.2 percent. Uncle Sam’s Fanny Mae and crony capitalism enthusiasms have come perilously close to collapsing our economy.
The jury’s still out on that last possibility, but one thing’s certain – conservative thinkers find no traction for trusting or funding more of the same. Overtime, enablers fare little better than the addicts they support.
That we’re dealing with addiction is affirmed by the diversity of those calling for more. Having China, the liberal media, bankers, and every special interest group in America nodding for the same thing is not a good thing.
There are no honest examples of increased government spending fixing an economy. Increasing the debt ceiling without dramatic cuts in social and military spending merely provides temporary cover for those creating the mess.
The President’s Bowles-Simpson Deficit Commission courageously offered a realistic recovery plan to address our seventy-trillion deficit. It was shelved – demonstrating that hiring a therapist is easier than taking advice.
Two skill sets are common to all addicts – denying and promising. Both are revealed in the scramble to create a grand bargain dependent on increased spending today with wink-wink cutbacks tomorrow. Any recovering alcoholic can provide a reality-check on the inevitable outcome of that charade.
For the same reason a bartender shouldn’t serve more beer to a drunk, now’s not the time for Washington’s conservative minority to surrender. Standing firm has less to do with making the sky fall than landing on the real world.
Shutting the bar down will be positive. We’ll stop throwing money at social problems needing our treasury less than our creativity. Make-believe capitalists will embrace an honest free-enterprise system or be forced out of the socialist closet. We’ll stop pretending we can police a crazy world and steal the American Dream by misusing government to rob our fellow man.
The road to recovery is always painful and begins today. This eleventh debt ceiling must be treated as an honest behavioral boundary, not another hollow promise to quit drinking tomorrow.
Click here for the link to the Citizen-Times article-
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