I don’t fully trust politicians of either party. It’s not that they are all dishonest. They aren’t. It’s that they tend to look after their own interests first and mine and yours second. It’s usually about their careers, not mine or yours.
Take the so-called “Gang of Six” in the Senate. They’ve come up with a proposal to fix the economy. If you read it, you’ll see it has enough vagueness to be interpreted any way the Democrats want. There’s talk of spending caps, for example. We’ve had them before and after a while, Congress lifted them, putting us in our present predicament. There’s talk about strengthening Medicare and Social Security. What does that mean? There are items about spending reductions as small as $500 billion and as high as $1.5 trillion. With a $14 trillion debt, that isn’t much.
Everyone knows what needs to be done, but these are politicians. Perhaps the heat wave in Washington and elsewhere is caused partly by their hot air.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.
This article published on July 22, 2011.
