If we were to imagine that I am your “teacher” and you are my “student,” it would be appropriate for me to give you an end-of-term report card for your performance during the recent term of Congress just ended.
My grade would an “F”. Why? You failed to turn in any work at all on two of the assignments and what you turned in on the third failed to address the assignment satisfactorily.
To remind you, your assignments were to (1) reduce government spending substantially, (2) reduce the escalating costs of the entitlement programs, and (3) revise the tax code so as to increase government revenues sufficiently to balance the current budget and to begin to reduce the public debt. Lest we forget, you gave yourself these assignments and I agree that they are good ones.
Your “teacher” observed that you only started working seriously on the assignments on the last days of the term which demonstrated a critical lack of discipline. Then you frittered away some of your time creating “pork” in the legislation that you passed, none of which was relevant to the assignments. In fact, much of the “pork” actually was counterproductive to the assignments.
Your “teacher” observed you engaging throughout the term in blaming, finger pointing, recrimination, and threats, all of which were very substantial distractions from completing the assignments. And in the face of your failures following the end of the term, you are continuing to do it.
I have serious doubts that there is any point in allowing you to remain in “school.” All three assignments are still ahead of you. Remember that you self-assigned them!
Now you have a fourth assignment, which is also self-assigned. You and your “classmates” authorized expenditures that exceeded government income. If the debt ceiling is not raised, the government will be in default. If this happens, there is substantial danger that the U.S. and the world economy will be propelled into a depression.
Is there any chance that you will complete your assignments? Satisfactorily? On time? If not, as your “teacher” I will vote to have you expelled from school.
Ed Douglass
Sturgeon Bay
