I absolutely agree with you that compromise is how our government is designed to work, should work and has successfully worked for well over 200 years. Compromise will happen when both sides start at their 25 yard line and find a way to move towards the middle of the field to make a deal. The process doesn't work when one side starts at their own goal line.
1. Cutting government spending willy nilly will drive us into recession.
2. I'm all for funding a robust defense, but we have gone way beyond robust into gold plated hyper advanced weapon system development that doesn't improve today's capabilities one whit. Spending $3.5 TRILLION on the next gen fighter program to replace a fighter that is currently way ahead of anything any other country has is what is bankrupting us. That's where the cuts should start, but both sides appear to be owned by the defense industry.
3. So instead, we are arguing over how much money to take away from widows, orphans, elderly and poor citizens, and how much to reduce spending on the nations infrastructure that is in the process of falling apart.
4. US energy production is vastly higher than any time during the past 10 years, so its hard to see how Obama's policies are hurting us.
5. Health insurance companies have successfully hidden the real costs of medical care from patients, because they don't really provide insurance - costs are merely passed through to policy buyers (which are primarily companies, not individuals). If Medicare is devolved to private insurance, medical cost increases will accelerate as private enterprise finds new ways to hide real costs. And instead of elected officials deciding what should be covered, we will have unelected health insurance company execs doing so.
6. I would be ecstatic if the tax code could be simplified and made fairer, but every single current provision has a constituency who fought hard to get it there, and who will fight hard to keep it there. I can guarantee you that if the Reps had control of the House, Senate and Pres, any tax overhaul would be filled with give aways to Republican friends, with just enough Dem give aways to make it look bipartisan. Pretty much what happened when the last overhaul was done in the 1980's under Reagan. |
