The Incomprehensible Stalemate

I spent several hours today watching several cable news outlets lamenting over the current economic position that the U.S. finds itself in. Being a somewhat average consumer I tried my best to listen and understand the babble and rambling of the talking heads on these different stations. What I heard was a continuing cacophony of blame and deflection in favor of conservatives or liberals depending on the outlet. This echoes what has been happening up on the hill. One only needs to look so far as the debt ceiling malarkey. As your average "Joe" I'm not sure I understand a fifth of all the points that made it so difficult to come to an understanding and solution on that matter. What I do understand is that this debacle clearly illustrates the inability of our current government to lead this nation.

The amount of squabbling and backbiting that occurs in our nation's capitol is appalling. It is a small wonder to me that S&P made the downgrade of our credit rating. As I've been reading articles on several sites online I'm convinced that the rating reduction was deserved, despite all the attacks against the S&P's reasoning.

As I see it and as my studies have taught me, there are certain principles that no one, not even the mighty U.S. government can avoid as it steers us straight into the oblivion of financial decay. We have for too long enjoyed a state of near Utopian proportions where our entitlements are concerned, (i.e. Petroleum subsidies, farming subsidies, healthcare, and social security), without paying the cost in real taxes. Our government has sought to pacify us with all of these entitlements. We are led to believe they are ours just because we are citizens of this nation. However, many of these entitlements, if any, were never a part of the Framer's ideas for this country.

But now that we have all these entitlements what do we do to sustain them? Should we sustain them? What is the actual cost of sustaining them? How will if affect the nations debt/economy 10, 20 years down the line?

I constantly hear the ramblings of politicians about cutting taxes and government spending. It seems to me that cutting government spending is the more important of the two, as long as we are talking about real reform. But here we are, locked in the proverbial political struggle over what to do to keep the status quo of spending and subsidies.

There needs to be consensus for real reform. There needs to be political revolution if necessary to help the leaders of this nation realize that it is not okay to gamble with the future of it's electorate. The job they have is bigger than themselves. It is bigger than us as a nation because of our influence in the global economy. There must be something done!

The issues that drive the stalemate of our nation's government are difficult for many to understand. However, the stalemate itself is easy to comprehend if one is acquainted with human nature. Either side is fighting for what it believes it's electorate is entitled to, afraid to risk their seat in the name of reason and principled governance. A call from people willing to abide good principles is needed to call our government out of it's selfish seat seeking ideology, into a forum of hardcore problem solving. But alas, who will answer the call. There are so few who care to look at what is really going on, their eyes glued to the screens of Fox News, or CNN, where talking heads argue back and forth about who is to blame. In so doing they stroke the egos of their respective constituents.

I, for my part, will attempt to discuss only principles that our nation was founded on. I will look for in this current political climate anything that is praiseworthy by definition of those principles. To any who seek truth among the rhetoric and want to see real change in the attitude of this nation, this is a place you can feel at home.