Congratulations to us folks. We”ve done it again. It takes an unimaginable amount of work and dedication to the cause of no improvement and recession maintenance, but the U.S. has again finished a fiscal year with a deficit of approximately $1.3 trillion. Not easy, but we have shown we can do it.
Seems to me that the country is suffering from a combined leadership that is far more interested in (each with a different mix) self survival, ideology, self interest, risk avoidance, paranoia, jealousy, envy, ego, machismo and so on, amplified by a complete lack of understanding of responsibility, inability to admit mistakes, compromise, cooptation and the well-being of the whole country.
Making sure nothing gets accomplished seems to be the major objective for all. When vast effort is spent promoting causes that are known to be non-starters and obstructing causes the people want, people get concerned. When the country gets the bill for the inaction, people get angry.
The sad part is that a whole lot of correction could easily be done if the various politicians would subvert personal ideologies and beliefs and support things that would help the country as a whole.
But doing so will cause pain so it is obviously better to do nothing. And that is where we are today. There is no model of the U.S. society and economics that does not show a need for both spending changes and revenue improvement. With the exception of many exclusions and subsidies, we have reduced people-oriented spending about as low as we can. Military, defense and national security are favored by government over education and infrastructure. The last thing politicians want is to have to listen to the ordinary people. Well, maybe that isn”t the last thing, I suspect is making decisions and taking stands on issues is felt to be far more threatening.
With health care we need to make a firm decision concerning providing health care to all U.S. residents.
If the decision is yes, then we should shut up and pay for the decision. Same thing with providing food and shelter. If yes, then let”s get on with it!
Or the country could just go the other way and admit that in our culture dying from causes as illness, starvation and exposure may be a shame, but is perfectly acceptable. The country could go out and buy a few more excavators and help the economy.
In other areas the U.S. had better accept the fact that some things have to be lived with instead of wasting funds perpetually fighting them.
Some of these I suspect are illegal immigration, terrorism and non-perfect solutions to solutions even though some people think we should be 100-percent, risk-free. But the ways to approach these require such things as compromise, cooptation and tolerance, and our rulers simply can”t handle these!
Supposedly elections are meant to help in these things. Shame they haven”t so far.
Guthrie “Guff” Worth
Lakeport
