Do you skate? No? Smart choice.
My last time on skates was just that... my last time on skates. I had a daughter by each hand and was teetering around the rink supposedly “helping” them. Suddenly and without warning, something flew in front of me. Turned out to be my feet. Before I could be surprised, I pile drove my tailbone straight into the floor. Laying there, stiff with pain and not being able to breathe, the DJ stopped the music and yells out “Mister, are you OK?”. The pain didn't stop, but was instantly surpassed by humiliation. I was close enough to the side to roll up onto the carpet and wave him off.
It was actually one of my more graceful landings.
You see, given a chance, the human mind can make many instant decisions when it has to. Like, when someone falls in front of you skating, you instantly react. But, usually, your balance is lost and your going down. The real decision is how to do it.
Option one is to just tuck down, hit and slide to an ungracious stop.
Option two is to suddenly pull on some previously unknown master talent and “leap” the obstacle. This is instantly followed by variations of the “windmill / running on skates” motion and then a full frontal dive onto your face, possibly breaking wrists and arms.
Both end with you down. It's just one is the sane approach to a bad situation and the other attempts what you've never done successfully , prolongs the inevitable, and ends much more painfully.
Something fell in front of our economy in the closing months of W's term. Otherwise sane, conservative Congressmen were presented with some scenario so dire as to make them craft and approve TARP1. Since then, O has come along and passed Stimulus 1 and Stimulus 2 (by another name). He wanted “Bride of Stimulus” and “Son of Stimulus”, but got distracted turning one sixth of our economy over to the government with his health care law. The Senate hasn't passed a budget in over 800 days, so they just keep issuing continuing resolutions to increase their pet projects and letting baseline budgeting (see next post) work. We now even pay people 2 years NOT to work (soon to be increased). Our country ran up a debt of just over $10 trillion in 230 years. We've increased it to $15 trillion in the last 3.
Before TARP1, we had a choice to make. Tuck down, hit and slide to stop, or windmill for a few more years to a much more painful end.
We've chosen poorly.
When was the last time our leaders actually made the hard decision? Like the immigration law. It completely ignores the fact that the reason there are so many jobs for illegals is able body Americans sit on their backside and do nothing while receiving a check. Need to fix that before you throw the baby out with the bath water. I guess am I jaded, but leaders on both sides seem to pull in half cooked ideas to please a constituency rather than an overall policy that actually addresses complete issues.
ReplyDeleteSomebody (and some generation) is going to have to make the hard decision and get short changed. For the overall good of the country I am ready. Fix the broke leg even if you have to cut if off. Stop with the Band-Aids already!