03 Oct 07 Raising the national dept cap, What a Shame!

While recently reviewing my states senators’ votes, I found that they have both voted to increase the statutory limit on our national dept from 9 trillion to 9.8 trillion dollars. Although 800 billion dollars may not seem like much to our congress, it is a significant amount of money. At some point, it is essential for individuals to live within their means. The same should be true of the government.

Our congress spends little time or effort in looking to cut spending. The federal government provides services that go far beyond its constitutional mandate, and even beyond what any reasonable person would expect. Our founding fathers would roll over in their graves if they knew at what rates we are taxed, or saw the size of our government. The sad thing is that even in the face of unprecedented spending, the issue that will define the 2008 campaign will be a health care package that will raise taxes even more and increase our dept.

When will we realize it is time to cut back? When will our congress be willing to cut programs and reduce budgets to our federal agencies? We can blame the politicians, but in reality, the problem is with the people. We as a society are expecting the government to provide more for us. We expect the government to fund our schools, build our roads, support the arts, provide health benefits, take care of the poor, bail us out from failures, help us recover from disasters, and protect our freedoms. Granted the government should play a role in some of these areas, but we as a society need to look first to ourselves, then to our families, and then to the community to help us overcome our problems or challenges. Until we are willing to solve a few of our own problems, rather than looking for solutions from the government this ridiculous trend of spending will continue.