New Material or Another Rerun
We’ve all gone through the situation of settling in for an evening of mindless entertainment and finding that there’s nothing worth watching on TV. Often we resort to watching a movie or a sitcom we’ve seen 100 times, even though we can quote the lines by heart.
I was reminded of that when hearing about the U.S. Senate’s budget plan that is coming up before the U.S. House. Is this something worth watching…or just another rerun of the same show we’ve seen over and over and over.
Sure sounds like it’s the same-old, same-old…cuts or spending savings down the road, with no appreciable change now. Lots of promises, but very little follow through…and certainly nothing resembling actual reform.
There are several House members who are saying they will vote “no” on the Senate plan, because not only does it not go far enough to stem the flow of wasteful spending…it doesn’t go anywhere at all.
Those who focus on the rules of the chambers and the process may note that this is just the way to get the two sides together to negotiate a big, beautiful bill, and that we should not get hung up on the details. But the swamp monsters in D.C. have gotten their way for decades with this “it’s part of the process” game, so you can understand why voters are more than a little gun shy.
No one said change would be easy. Everyone wants to cut someone else’s money, not theirs. But this is not sustainable, and not even trying to fix the problem of too much spending is a true dereliction of duty, a failure to listen to, and act on, the wishes of voters.
Not that that would be a shocker, either. But at least put up some sort of show before rolling over.
