Not What I Want But It Is On My Mind

I didn't want it on my mind but everywhere I turned there it was. It was the topic at the barber shop; it was on my television and radio; the people in line at the grocery store; it appears on the pages of Facebook; it's just about everywhere. What is it? It is the budget and the debate or from my point of view the incessant bickering over what to cut and why we should or should not cut expenditures.

• First as I watch and listen I wonder if we as people ever do really grow up. The whole discussion sounds like a bunch of children arguing over some inane thing rather than serious minded people sorting out serious problems. Quiet frankly the level of discussion and apparently the ability to reason have been lost. When in a democratic republic did the practice of compromise become a bad thing? What I'd like to see is some "grown-up" talk about the budget issues that involve an effort to spread the pain of the cuts across the board to everyone. With that in mind create a budget that includes a category called Debt Retirement and start paying the debt down and not just reducing it's rate of growth.


• Secondly, I am just plan tired of the hysteria about the budget deficit and what it means to my grandchildren. Here's the deal, if the hysteria were based in fact we would have ended the Bush Tax credits and added more than $800 billion to the treasury (according to the Congressional Budget Office). Oh to be sure the Nation Debt and it's rate of growth is a major concern and needs to be addressed but it needs to be addressed seriously. You can't eat an elephant all at once and you will not solve the Nation Debt in one action. But, by all means, let's sit down and start eating or it will eat us.


• It will not fix the debt problem but it will make me feel better if we'd just quit arguing about tax percentages and adopt a national sales tax in place of the income tax that includes everything except maybe medicines and food or a flat income tax that applies to everyone equally with no upper income maximum or low income minimum and no deductions of any kind.


• I have come to despise the phrase, "The American people want." That phrase assumes we are as a nation a homogeneous group thinking with one mind and that just isn't so. As a nation we are more like Baptist than anything else. You put three Baptist in a room and they will agree on some fundamental principles of faith but on everything else you will get three opinions. That's how we are as a nation. We agree on the basic principles of Liberty, Justice etc but on everything else there are as many opinions as there are people. Again, this is where the principle of compromise comes into play.


• Lastly, for my Right Wing Religious friends who keep reminding us that we are a "Christian" nation. All I can say is: If we are in fact or should in fact be a"Christian" nation then our federal budget should reflect that fact. For the answer to this we have to ask ourselves what we are doing as a nation to fulfill the social mission that Jesus laid out for us in Matthew 25:35-40, namely feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, visiting the imprisoned, clothing the naked etc. All this without asking how they came to be in that circumstance but simply responding to the need at hand.

Anyway, that's what's on my mind right now . . . . that and my upcoming trip to Florida. See I am not a fanatic as I just changed the subject.