Sun-Telegraph Opinion the Clown

Writing in Wednesday's edition, the Sun-Telegraph editorial asks the question, "Political Strutting Or Washington Clown Show?" In accordance with its long-standing policy of not actually taking a position in its opinion pieces, they continue to miss the underlying point.

Borrowing freely from other writers and sources uncited, the paper replays the hassle that was the debt crisis debate from two perspectives: Those who feel the bitterness will continue in future negotiations, while the so-called, "glass is half full" crowd recognizes that something can get done, "when it absolutely must." In attempting to play the middleman, the Sun-Telegraph does nothing more than muddle the situation.

Let's be clear: The debt debacle is just that, a debacle. Although the 2.4 trillion dollar extension in the debt ceiling, matched by cuts of the same amount seems like a good deal, examining the time frames it applies to is what should leave a foul taste in people's mouths.

Consider the current budget deficit of approximately 1.6 trillion dollars per year. In ten years this equals 10.6 trillion dollars of of new national debt (on top of our outlandish 14.5 trillion dollar figure). Strip off the projected deficit reduction of 2.4 trillion and we are left with a staggering debt of nearly 23 trillion dollars. This plan, while better than nothing, cannot be seen as anything other than a perpetuation of the same disastrous policies politicians have enacted for decades.

The time has come to radically alter the course of American governmental spending policy. Social Security, Medicare and other sacred cows must be replaced with effective alternatives that allow access to these services without remaining an open wallet flipped upside down. It is not even a trick of math to say that we can play games with an option here or there and make these programs solvent for another generation. It cannot be done without causing people of my generation and probably my daughter's much financial pain.

It sucks, but that is the way life is, or used to be, before Uncle Sam turned into the sugar daddy that FDR,  LBJ and now BHO have made it. The founders of this nation clearly were not "progressives" in the liberal political sense. They believed in a fair tax (See John Adams' 2% tax on all land, not any sliding scale like current income tax rates), and would see 40% of the population paying no fair share as abhorrent and un-American.

This government was instituted to provide for the common defense and to promote (not provide) the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. Bastardized interpretations by Congress and the Supreme Court on the commerce clause are why we are in the fix we seem to be today. Unless, and until, we collectively pull our heads out of the sand and alter our present course of spending, there will come a day when we will be fighting each other for the remaining scraps of our country.

The Sun-Telegraph should have the cojones to take a position on one side of the fence or the other. Instead, it continues to waddle on the increasingly rickety boards, waiting for someone else to make the news.