Two Sides Of The Same Coin

PICTURE THIS:

You’ve just finished a hard week’s work, and are on your way home with your pay in your pocket. Or, you are perhaps an employer who after paying a usurious amount of government taxes, including deductions at source, is also on your way home with your profits in your pocket.

But . . . on your way home, two big guys stop you on the street and drag you into a well-lit room where others are negotiating. You’re politely asked to sit at a table while the negotiations are carried on.

But, you have no input. And what they’re negotiating is how much money they’ll take out of your pocket, whether you want to part with any of it or not.

ONE GROUP ON THE LEFT of your seat says that you should give up a big chunk of what you’ve EARNED because other people who don’t work as hard as you do, or prefer not to work at all need some of your money.

These folk on your LEFT also discuss the needs of the people who would rather go out and spend their money on entertainment, or booze, or cigarettes, or a car they can’t afford, rather than put it into healthcare.

But, not to end there, the LEFTISTS discuss the cost of paying Public Sector Workers their bloated salaries, perks and obscene pensions, the kind of retirement money you’ll never live long enough to see, not to mention the operating costs for departments that have nothing to do with you.

When it’s all done, the LEFTISTS point to the enormous borrowing costs needed keep the wheel turning and how much MORE they’ll need to take out of your pocket for that to happen.

Then the folk on your RIGHT side, tell the people on the LEFT side, that they are unreasonable, and we shouldn’t be taking as much money out of your pockets.

So how about we all agree to take a little bit less for now, says one of the people on the RIGHT?

NO WAY screams the folk on the LEFT who complain bitterly that what they’re taking is the minimum they need.

SO THE TWO SIDES START THE REAL NEGOTIATIONS.

While you’re sitting quietly taking all of this in, the people on your LEFT, and on your RIGHT begin BIPARTISANSHIP discussions, while keeping a CIVIL and RESPECTFUL tone between them.

They call each other MY FRIEND, and become very proud that they reached a mutual COMPROMISE on how much money to take out of your pocket.

Then they decide to sit together, instead of standing on either side of you as they did during the NEGOTIATIONS, to show how politically CIVIL and ACCOMMODATING they are in spite of their differences.

And when the negotiations are all over, and they’ve each helped themselves to most of the money that was in your pocket, they expect your gratitude for not taking more.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your government, whether they are on your LEFT . . . or on your RIGHT.

So, when John Boehner of the Republicans decided to give into a LAME-DUCK Congress which the people VOTED-OUT in HUGE numbers instead of waiting a few weeks to do what the people voted him and his members in office to do, he CHEATED the people.

Everything that was voted-in during the LAME-DUCK Session could have waited until the new Congress was sworn-in, INCLUDING the Bush Tax Cut Extension if the President wouldn’t go along with a straight up and down vote on it.

They could have waited to sign the Nuclear Treaty with the Russians, which the Russian haven’t yet ratified because it doesn’t seem to be all that important to them. I guess it wasn’t as critical as Obama said it was.

What was so critical about passing the repeal of Don’t As Don’t Tell that couldn’t wait for the new session?

And as for extending the unemployment benefits to THREE years; that too could have waited.

AND NOW COMES THE DEBT CEILING:

IF any Republican votes for increasing the DEBT CEILING, he or she should be turfed-out in 2012, INCLUDING Boehner who has already crossed the line between what he promised and what he’s delivered.

Not only did the people speak in November 2010, they SHOUTED, yet, business in Washington continues as usual with both sides staging the same performance with different actors.

I can’t understand for the life of me what is going through the minds of the politicians, especially the Republican politicians concerning the Debt Ceiling and spending in general.

They’re either for continuing the spending-game or against it. There is no room for compromise. There is no room for conciliation or bipartisanship. There is only one consideration, and that is for the people who trusted the Republicans with their vote.

It certainly isn’t rocket-science.

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Best Regards . . . Howard Galganov