I think it was Woody Allen, who said that "Paranoia is knowing all the facts.". Not that I know any of the facts about what is going on in Washington or anywhere else, but simple observation provides a fearful vision of legislation disintegration in the District of Columbia and no one seems to be able pull us out of the nose dive. Legislative logjam seems to be result of any legislative discourse.
Where is the leadership? Simply put, we are in a situation where there is a game of "one upmanship" going on and the American people have lost faith in both the President and the Congress as evidenced by their approval ratings.
No can disagree that we are not in deep debt and we need to do reduce spending, but the real cause of current lack of legislative progress reflects the wide divergence of philosophical viewpoints and world views within the United States of America about who we should be. I believe we are really fighting over what our national identity should be. The question on the table... Are we going to be the nation of the last 200 years or we just simply melting into to member nation among other nations and just assume the position of follower among nations.
Internationalism over nationalism.
If I was paranoid, I might see that there is an agenda to drive this country and its populus into a different kind of national identity...subject to the international community and one that does not exerts its national agenda internally, but one that lines up with the dictates of the world community. The United States would simply become a nation under world governement or in the near term, one that is part of a North American coalition with Mexico and Canada, paved the way by NAFTA and similar treaties signed
Simplistically, it seems that there is a concern for supporting those who can't support themselves and another view that we are straining at the seams to carry on the way we have for the last 75 years. FDR and his administration created the Federal Reserve Board and Social Security entitlements, both which are playing a significant role in creating this country as a debtor nation.
We simply need to make hard decisions and we need to be willing to make them. I have three sons and I am concerned about their future and what kind of tax burden we are laying on them.
It's time to bite the bullet. We are at the stage of the debt is equal to the entire GDP output of the United States. Though it may be noble conceptually, it would seem that we are not able to continue to support any new major social initiatives that create ongoing societal burdens and we must curtail our current entitlements. This is going to be hard, but we need to make this decision.
At the same time, US ventures of war into other nations, whether justified or not, has drained this country of vital funding. We need to avoid any new military ventures and withdraw from any entanglements we are engaged in. The days of preemption should be over. We can no longer simply "go to war" based on flimsy justifications and on emotional knee jerking. The basis for going to war used to be a major congressional discussion. It seems that Presidents can decide to engage in war and Congress is simply a rubber stamp for the executive branch.
My parents and my grandparents did to make my life a good one. It is time we all sacrficed for our chidren. Time to sacrifice for the next generation.
