The economy is headed south again and the politicians, instead of fixing what everyone knows needs to be fixed, are blaming each other.
President Obama blames the Republican House. Republicans blame the president and the Democrat-majority Senate which refuses to vote on any House Republican proposals, which they say would start the healing process by addressing Social Security and Medicare, which most people acknowledge is the main strain on the economy.
The real problem is politicians don't want to tell us to do more for ourselves. That used to be the central truth of national life until Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Government is now our keeper, and a bad one at that. Too many of us turn to government for everything, even though government consistently demonstrates it is incapable of doing most things well.
The power of the individual has been lost in all this. Where are the leaders who will tell us not what we want to hear, but what we need to hear?
I'm Cal Thomas in Washington.
Publication date: June 6, 2012
