The U.S. Government yet again comes close to shut down revealing their love of suspense

   Well here we are, not 5 months away from the last spending bill debate and Congress is yet again closing in on the deadline of complete government shutdown. I would be lying if I said I was surprised. If you have been close to a TV, radio, iphone, or any other media device in the past few years or so you would know how divided a nation we are and how hard it is to pass anything. We, as a nation, are trapped between a Republican party that wants to slash away at many of our nations social programs and a Democratic party who has spent millions trying to keep these programs alive and create new jobs and has yet to really show anything for it. When I look at this issue I find myself disagreeing with both sides of the argument. In my opinion the Republican party's plan to cut our way out of this problem is simple irresponsible and frankly does not make sense. If America was a corporation (which arguable it is but that is a debate for another time) and it was experiencing such an economic crisis cutting whole departments away wouldn't be the only thing a normal bussiness would do. The first question that would be asked is how can we create more income to keep our "business" alive. If we were to continue cutting away at our government then the government would be cut to the core, have little power to do anything in our society, and still have to deal with the enormous problem of how to defeat unemployment and bring our economy back to its former strength. Many of my Republican viewers my see a weaker government that has less power to regulate business as a good thing but I'll ask you this, if a company is not required to consider the effect of what it produces on the environment and on the health of its workers it can produce a cheaper product but at a great cost to society.  The consumer may win but the worker will lose. But I digress. Another problem that comes from cutting away at social programs is that it takes help away from a lot of people who actually need it. While programs such as needle exchanges are being shut down in D.C. millions of dollars are being spent on military bases that aren't necessary, such as ones in Germany where a 4th Reich does not seem to be in its future.
   While debate still continues on how to fix our economy, the Democrats answer is not too promising either. Although the Democrats idea to avoid cutting social programs while giving states billions in stimulus money is still wrong I'll at least admit that the Democrats are on the right track. The problem with the Democrat's plan is all the stimulus money they are throwing at the state governments is doing nothing but giving America a temporary fix to its economic problem. All the states are doing is spending the stimulus money on already existing programs and construction jobs to roads and brigdes and although this may create and maintain hundreds of thousounds of jobs for a while, once the money runs out all those jobs go away again. Where the money really needs to go is into new ideas and new programs that can grow and create new jobs. Remember America? We used to be the guy with all the new inventions and ideas. We used to be the cutting edge of the market, but every since funding for new ideas has slowed so has our economy. We have to start investing in our future again, you know the children and what not. There are plenty of great ideas out there too, like new forms of energy that can be taped into right here at home.
   Well until Congress can stop arguing over what is normally a routine activity in our government's history we will continue to face this ongoing crisis. The bill coming through legislature today will further cut spending in multiply places throughout our government including the clean energy program which will stall any advances in new technology and put us further behind other countries such as China in creating a new market that could create hundreds of thousands of jobs. Even worse is the thought that even if they pass this bill it will only be another quick fix and we will most likly find ourselves in the same situation in another few months from now. Am I optimistic for the future of this country? In short, no. There are going to be many huge problems ahead of us that are going to be tough to tackle but it is not impossible. What we need is there to be a change in how we fight this challenge, because it is one that our nation has never faced before and using the old methods that we have become comfortable with will only lead us to continued failure. Whether this change will come over time and gradually be fixed or change will be forced upon us at the brink of failure is unclear, but it is clear that change must happen if our country is to survive.
Sincerely yours,
Theurer