Let's Make a Deal

The other night Congress made a deal that stopped the shutdown. Good for them. Kinda. The news media made a great big show of the idea that a shutdown would have left our troops in the lurch. Troops on the front lines were once considered emergency personnel and exempt from a shut down. Somehow their designation must have been changed to non-emergency. Things that make you go hmmmm. The stuff going on behind the scenes is disconcerting to say the least. And the bureaucracy around it is so unwieldly that fixing it is almost impossible.

But let's talk turkey here: both sides have a brain cramp somewhere. The left is hell-bent to spend all of our hard-earned money. The right is hell-bent to cut everything. Wouldn't it be nice if we could have a normal conversation with our representatives so that rational thought would prevail?

Why do they continually want to cut Medicare and Social Security? They complain about lack of healthcare but want to cut the only system that really helps seniors with healthcare. If we had to pay more for my husband's Medicare it would be a disaster financially. It's the "fixed income thing" - and Congress is completely oblivious to it. Because someone is on a roll- or what I like to call the ideology trains.Two of the running in opposite directions and there are ends to the tracks just up ahead!

Here's some food for thought- how about the processes of bidding and purchasing within the federal government? Do you think we could do some good revamping there? They always go with low bidder, which can often result in money wasted from stuff that isn't up to par. Then they'll turn around and purchase something that should have cost very little and pay a whopper price for it. (Ok they could've gone to the local hardware store for 5 bucks instead of some contractor who charges $2000. Get the picture?) Padding the budgets, wasteful practices, fraud both in and out of the system -- those areas all cost taxpayer money. But when our Congress gets on an idea roll for left or right, truth is often left behind in the dust. Sometimes a program should be cut (especially socialist ones or ones that obviously go against what America has always stood for), but sometimes it's practices within the main structure.

One can only hope that the people in charge of us will one day soon get a clue and start really cutting the pork and leave the things which affect real people alone. I hope so. I love this country. Watching it cave in on itself is extremely sad.