I woke up to hear KidzBop blaring from Missy’s room.
Well … KidzBop mixed with Woody Woodpecker, anyway.
“…Come tomorrow, it will seem so yester … so yest … so yes-yes-yes-yes-yes ….”
Groan. Stuck CD. Time to skip it to the next track.
Don’t you wish Congress was as quick to figure that out?
We spent most of the summer listening to that broken record, the long, bloody debt ceiling debate that at times had all the intellectual rigor of a playground argument.
“You move first!”
“No, YOU move first!”
“Moooooooommmm!”
And while the politicians played their little game of chicken with the nation’s financial standing, millions were left waiting to see if the oncoming trucks would crush them in between … including Missy, who receives disability aid from Social Security.
That’s not something I take very kindly.
I’m not saying the deficit doesn’t need addressing. It’s needed it for years, especially after the bills rung up in the last decade with no visible means of support. But when there’s an immediate crisis, that needs to be your priority. Put out the fire, then you can handle the dry rot.
Picture a young man named Sammy. He got his books in order about 10 years ago, then decided to go part-time at work so he could enjoy life a little more. No problem, except that he kept up his expenses as though he were still full time. I’ll grant you, at some point, Sammy has to either cut his expenses or go back to full-time to bring in more money – probably both.
But if Sammy has a mortgage payment due in two days on pain of foreclosure, that’s got to be the top of the list. Even if it means borrowing some more cash to do it. It’s not a good situation – but getting thrown out of your house by the sheriff is a worse one.
You know it. I know it. Many in Congress took months to figure it out. They stayed stuck on the same point, unable to move on, convinced that “compromise” meant “I get what I want no matter what.” And why not? Their checks weren’t in danger of getting stopped.
Frankly, Missy’s scratched CD was more entertaining.
Funny thing. If a CD skips too often, sooner or later, it gets replaced with one that works. Think that works with Congresses, too?
Because honestly, this one seems so yesterday.