It’s the Congress, Stupid!

Photo credit: Fwaaldijk

Another $1 Trillion Christmas Gift to Politicians

I’ll admit that I’ve done my share of Obama-bashing, because he richly deserves to be criticized for almost everything he has done these past eight years as president.

The fact is, however, that he couldn’t have done nearly as much damage to the U.S. economy, military and social fabric without the meek acquiescence of the Congress.  Yes, he has surpassed all preceding presidents in his use of Executive Orders, but that, too, is because the Congress has shirked its Constitutional duty and authority and failed to challenge those orders.

ObamaCare is now almost universally acknowledged as having devastated most Americans’ health care coverage, even by the Democrats who voted for it.  Perhaps they should have actually read the bill before voting on it?

Our military is smaller and weaker than at any time since prior to WWII, our admitted $20 trillion dollar national debt will, indeed, “fundamentally transform this nation,” just as Obama threatened…and not for the better.  While the true debt is closer to $170 trillion, even that admitted total will prove ruinous to this country.  It’s what destroyed the Soviet Union, at the time the second most-powerful nation in the history of mankind.  It will destroy the U.S. as we know it, too.

But it has been the Congress that has passed all those spending bills, for legislation good and bad.  And each year they simply, in effect, borrow more money and kick the problem down the road for future generations (and future career politicians) to worry about.  You get deep in debt and try that; go to the bank and tell them you just want to borrow enough money to continue to function for one more year…then do it again the next year, and the next.  Yet that’s exactly what the Congress has been doing, and is about to do again.

Using the usual scare tactics of “without this legislation the federal government will shut down,” last year the Senate passed a $1.8 TRILLION spending bill to “fund the government” for the next year.  First of all, Jefferson was right: the government that governs least, governs best, so shutting down of the federal government would be a step in the right direction.  But what that “funding government” actually means is that they get even more of our tax money to spend on all the boondoggles they want!  Someone once wrote that evil will expand in proportion to the resistance it meets: well, since the Congress doesn’t get any resistance from the people who elect them, they continue to expand our national debt, even though those highly educated people know exactly the inevitable outcome of such massive debt to a nation.

We’re facing the same thing again, with the GOP “fearful” that they’ll again have to vote on an omnibus spending bill of over $1 TRILLION dollars by Christmas to keep the federal government in business the next year.  They’re “fearful” only for one thing: that the American people will finally wake up and hold them accountable for voting to again increase our national debt.

Understand that, even with our massive debt, there’s almost zero talk of spending cuts, as if there’s no wasteful spending in government.  Read that again.  Almost nobody in Congress even mentions reducing spending on any program, no matter how wasteful or ineffective.  When they tell us that they’re for “spending cuts,” what they mean is that instead of, say, $5 billion in new spending for a certain legislation, they’re for “only” $4 billion…in new spending.  That’s still $4 billion more in taxes that we have to pay!  But it has worked for decades, and will work again this year.

When all this comes crashing down, as it inevitably will, those millionaire Congressmen and Senators, of both parties, will be shielded from the impact of a catastrophic economic collapse by their money, property and connections.  No so for you and me, who have allowed them to spend like drunken sailors with no consequences to their careers.

So, when one day you’re scrambling to find food for your family, or gas for your vehicle, or to keep the roving bands of looters out of your home, you’ll only have one person to blame…yourself.  You’ve let this happen, and you’ll let this Congress do it again, and then re-elect the same corrupt parasites to do it again next year. . . that is, if this house of cards still hasn’t collapsed by then.

Ostriches have the smallest brain per body size of almost all creatures on earth; perhaps that explains why they’ll sometimes bury their head in the sand when danger approaches.  Americans have been doing that for decades when it comes to our national debt.  Some say “Obama has increased our national debt more than all preceding presidents combined,” but they’re wrong. . .the Congress has done that.  And YOU have let them.

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Formerly a liberal and an atheist, Paul E. Scates served as a Marine in Vietnam and is a lifelong student of American history, politics and culture. A former contributor to national website TooGoodReports.com, he writes his staunchly independent Conservative and informed Christian commentary for his fellow ordinary, working Americans, the “we, the people” who are ultimately responsible for preserving our Constitutional liberties.

Paul E. Scates

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