Enough with the stop-gap measures! Half-measures will avail nothing to the United States! Ancillary, penny-ante, billion-dollar cuts to the federal budget will not restore this country to fiscal sanity.
True, the proposed $70 billion in cuts is historic for the United States Congress. Yet in light of the 2010-2011 $1.5 trillion dollar deficit and the $14 trillion
($14,000,000,000,000 !!!) national debt looming over this country, it is a mere rounding error. To claim any real progress toward fiscal discipline with such paltry concessions is insulting, if not absurd and unserious.
Congress must attack the entitlements strangling the economy and future posterity of this country. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, these initial supports have turned into middle-class baby-boomer largesse draining the security of our nation and the opportunities of future generations.
Baby-steps toward fiscal solvency will not ensure any long-lasting success for the United States.
Kudos to the 54 Republicans who voted against a three-week extension of the Federal Budget. The Freshman and Tea Party Republicans who have taken Washington by storm are sticking to their principles.
Will they propose meaningful, budget cutting legislation of their own? Will they have the courage to do more than vote against stop-gap measures, which so far can easily pass over them with supports form Democrats?
Will the Tea Party Congressmen cave when Congress has to debate extending the current $14+ trillion debt-ceiling?
It is no longer enough to "throw the bums out"! We do not have time to recycle old Congressional hacks with neophytes who wither into the same insiders despised and besought by the popular media.
As a last stance for hope, Milton Friedman sharply pointed out that the electorate in this country does not have to occupy itself with throwing out incumbent legislators, but to make political necessary decisions viable for current Congressmen. We did so many Senators ultimately support the Civil Rights Acts of 1964? They wanted to hold on to the electorate which would without a doubt include minorities in the South!
Tea Party Advocates and Fiscal Hawks must make Economically Sound Legislation a politically expedient proposition for lawmakers. If they know that whacking away at the budget will net them more votes in the next election, then they will cut away at the financial waste ruining this country.