The Good The Bad and The Ugly

When I first heard on Friday about the spending bill being put before the Senate, I felt a sense of disgust. Once again our elected officials are blatantly ignoring the needs of their constituencies for the sake of pork barrel spending. The current bill includes more than 5,000 pet projects, the most ridiculous of which have already been exposed by the major news organizations.

As I read more about the bill however, I realized that it has its good side. The main purpose of the measure, known as an omnibus bill, is to pay for vital programs in areas such as veterans, health and education. That’s the stuff we need. As much as I hate to admit it, a flawed government is still better than no government.

However, the ugly part of the situation is the most outrageous. This is the mindset of the Congress, which views profligate spending as a virtue to be praised. Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois reminded all of us that the individual spending bills were given bipartisan support by the Senate Appropriations Committee. Isn’t that wonderful?
Both parties agree that irresponsibly raising the national debt to reward campaign contributors is an admirable end.

As the New York Times reported yesterday, there is more of this behavior yet to come. The next major bill to come before Congress is a $600 billion measure that will pay for the operations of the Pentagon for the next year. Since no one in Congress would vote against keeping the Pentagon in business, there are plans being made to attach other wasteful spending projects to this measure.

Included in those measures is one provision to raise the federal debt limit by $1.8 trillion. What sense does it make to have a debt limit if Congress is just going to raise it every year to cover their own irresponsibility? Think about what would happen if the average homeowner was allowed to do that on an annual basis. In some sense, that’s exactly what did happen, and look where we are now.

I have to wonder if Congress is aware or at the very least cares about the ugly image it displays to the general voting public. Their approval numbers don't seem to mean much to them. They are mortgaging our future for the sake of the few and flipping the rest of us the bird at the same time. They only reasons they do it are because no one holds them accountable and because they are so insulated from the plight of the average citizen that they listen only to those who throw the most money at them.

Let’s hope that changes before the well runs dry, before the credibility of the United States turns into a impudent joke at a Russian vodka party.

*Source information for this article is from The New York Times December 13th edition