A Plan Please

In my last post I blasted the Republicans for being unwilling to work with President Obama on the debt ceiling. I stand by my criticism of them. However, I would be remiss if I did not also point out the fact that the Republicans have at least presented a plan out to the public. First, it was the plan from Congressman Paul Ryan. Now they have recently passed a plan through the House of Representatives that requires a balanced budget. I may have issues with the plan but at least it is out there, which is more than what we are getting from our president.
Why have we not seen the Democrat plan? Are they not capable of putting together a plan to solve the debt ceiling crisis? Of course they are. The fact of the matter is that they do not want to put out a plan. Once you put out a plan then the opposing political party can attack the specifics of the plan. It is smart politics to let your political opponents produce a specific plan that you can attack while you stick with generalities. The Democrats are playing smart politics with this ploy.
But they are not contributing to solving our problem. Perhaps this is what is really wrong with us. It is not that our political system is creating our economic problems, although that might be the case, but it is that our political system does not provide incentives for us to solve those problems. Republicans want to keep the Tea Party people happy and thus take tax revenues completely off the table. Democrats want to keep their political advantage and so will not produce a workable plan. Both are playing politics instead of finding solutions.
And do you wonder why I refuse to be either a Republican or a Democrat?

Sincerely,

Trouble-Maker

Can we be adults about this?

Everyone agrees that we will have to raise our debt limit. But the Republicans want a deal with no increase in revenue but plenty of spending cuts. The Democrats want revenue increases and will do some spending cuts as long as Social Security is off the table. So we have had an impasse with neither side really serious about getting a deal.
But then recently President Obama showed that he is serious. He put Social Security on the table for debate. Now it has been up to the Republicans to put revenue increases on the table as well. It did not even have to be tax increases. It could have been the closing of the tax loopholes for revenue increases. Funny thing happen on the way to the compromised. The Republicans decided to play games instead of cutting a deal.
To be sure not all of the Democrats were willing to have Social Security on the table. Pelosi and a lot of the liberal Democrats were gearing up to fight Social Security cuts. But President Obama decided that trying to fix our budget was more important then trying to have a political issue. It is too bad the Republicans did not want to do the same.
For the Republicans stopping President Obama from enjoying political success was more important than solving our problems. It is similar to what the Democrats did to Bush. Obstructing the president of the opposite party seems to be an American tradition.
But the problem with that tradition is that in situations like this we as Americans can not come together to compromise and find solutions. Even as I praise President Obama in this current situation I can not forget that he voted against raising the debt ceiling when President Bush wanted it. We have to get past just trying to stop the other party and look at compromises that can solve the problems of our country. Is that too much for a troublemaker to ask?

Sincerely,

Trouble-Maker