Georgia Mountain Beacon

Guest Column by Gary Meier

This is ridiculous. 

Americans took another big hit yesterday in the stock market because Democrats are holding this country hostage and Obama continues to play politics.  A costly colossal collapse of the Supercommittee, unable to identify $1.2 TRILLION in spending cuts, has led to TRILLIONS of dollars in losses by citizens of every stripe…retirement accounts of teachers and nurses, retirement accounts of working Americans, investors, grandma’s, policemen, truck drivers.

The bipartisan 12-member panel was a joke from the beginning.  In the first place, why should a group of 12 usurp the responsibilities of the rest of our elected officials? Our government has committees and structures in place to deal with the current crisis.  Giving twelve people such opportunity and immeasurable power has never before happened in the history of our Republic.   This was obviously a dereliction of duty on the part of the people we elected to represent us.  As the Group of Twelve spent two months hemming and hawing, the national debt continued to rise and peaked at $15 TRILLION last week.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, is a typical example of Democrat hostage taking.  Her mantra is “Shared Sacrifice”:  “The wealthiest Americans who earn over a million a year have to share too. And that line in the sand, we haven’t seen Republicans willing to cross yet,” she said.  Never mind that this group already pays 70% of all federal income taxes.  Republicans apparently see that this group is not only sharing but sharing more than their fair share.  Republicans know that anyone of them crossing “that line in the sand” is dead meat. 

Meanwhile, Obama continues spending taxpayer money as if there is no tomorrow…on the campaign trail.  He knows his only chance of being elected is to blame a “do nothing” Congress, meaning Republicans. Thus, he has been doing nothing, being absent from the whole process. Playing politics with the debt crisis is his only hope.  His lack of leadership has left the Group of Six with no direction as to the President’s positions on entitlement reform, tax reform and the defense budget.  Thus, withoutdirection from the White House, the Democrats are going in the wrong direction, leading to a dysfunctional committee.  He has created a vacuum that is sucking the life from America. 

Talk about floundering.  Democrats wouldn’t talk about anything until they received concessions to squeeze more blood from the rich. Their passion is to avoid accountability and making the kind of tough choices all of us have to make in running our households. Negotiations were doomed before the Supercommittee was even named. 

This whole mess has brought Roy Rogers into the picture.  The feckless efforts of the Supercommittee in horsing around will now Trigger automatic spending cuts of $1 TRILLION to entitlements and defense.  Not that this is all bad but nothing happens until 2013.  By that time Republicans will have saddled up and taken over the Senate and White House, sending many democrats riding into the sunset. At that time serious debt reduction and a balanced budget will take place. 

Our current debt problem is not a revenue problem, it is a spending problem.  Addressing the situation with any other mindset is ridiculous.

Tags: Gary Meier, Guest Column