Yet Another Continuing Resolution To Avoid Government Shutdown
January, 20,2024

Last night, Mr. Biden signed yet another temporary spending bill to, once more, avert the possibility of a government shutdown. I write this not as a jab to the president...that this needs to be done with increasing frequency is the fault of every elected official, along with the American people themselves who tolerate it.

I recall a time, not so long ago, when these shutdown threats were big news and occurred infrequently. Now we hear about them all the time. The reason is simple; the American government spends too much money.

By "too much money", I mean far, far more than it takes in. It needs to borrow what funds it doesn't have and pay interest on that debt. Last year, we spent three quarters of a TRILLION DOLLARS servicing our national debt. And now, with interest rates elevated in order to fight inflation, new debt issued by our government will be sold indexed to these higher rates.

Isn't putting the brakes on this madness something all Americans can get behind? I don't claim to have heard every speech or comment by every candidate running for office, but I don't hear enough about controlling spending by either side.

I believe a few simple concepts would transform my country: (1) campaign finance reform, to both cripple the lobbying industry and dam the river of money that dominates our election process, and (2) term limits for all elected officials to keep our politician/representatives from ossifying in their seats, growing rich, lazy and corrupt due to our inability to control number (1). Let's add a third measure to the aforementioned: a balanced budget amendment, written so that in any year the federal government does not operate on a balanced budget (except in times of a real national emergency and not something manufactured to meet the conditions of the amendment) all federal-level elected officials would be ineligible from holding national office ever again.

None of those 3 ideas are new or clever; they're just common sense. I want to believe most Americans would support them. The low likelihood we will ever get any of them says a lot about the nature of "representation" in our government.