There's no I in team, and there's apparently no teamwork in government. As has been reported, the group of senators announced, "...after months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee's deadline."
It's astonishing to me that a government committee, basically chosen for the task of crafting spending cuts, could not come to a decision. This, after congress displayed an inability to do so this Summer regarding the debt ceiling debate (and the fallout that came after.) At the same time, it's astonishing that the failure to come to an agreement is not entirely surprising, either. Much has been discussed in financial media, with some news anchors talking about how the failure to come to an agreement is "no surprise" - but isn't that in itself a sad statement? Those elected to lead have lowered expectations to the point where their inability to come to an agreement on important financial issues is almost expected.
Has politics become so lucrative that playing political games become in the greater interest of politicians than making difficult decisions or even basic decisions in the interest of the American populace? Or is this not even a matter of political games as much as it is the inability of both parties to face the very un-super reality of the country's finances? Or both? These are questions the entire country has to answer because the inability of this government to even get budgetary issues done is immensely concerning and speaks volumes about so many other aspects of what we rely upon - if this congress can't work together on budgetary issues, may I ask what they can work together on? There's not a lot of time, either - the time to start making progress on some of the structural issues of this country has passed and we need politicians with the courage to lead and face economic realities that may not be pleasant or popular, because continuing to go down the same path will only snowball current problems. Additionally, we haven't even seen the fallout from this committee's inability to come to a decision - both on the surface (possible debt rating/outlook downgrades) and below the surface (how the inability to come to a decision will be seen in other parts of the world.)
The approval rating of Congress last month? 9%? Does that concern any of them? Maybe it should, especially given that even Paris Hilton and the IRS have higher approval ratings (15% and 40%, respectively.) When your approval rating is significantly lower than the IRS and a faded reality star who no one was sure why they were popular in the first place, that may signal a problem. Story
