THE ATTENTION DEFICIT AMERICAN AND THE PROFESSIONAL POLITICIAN

THE ATTENTION DEFICIT AMERICAN AND THE PROFESSIONAL POLITICIAN

On May 16^th, the United States reached its debt limit of $ 14.3 trillion dollars. That’s a lot of zeroes! I did some calculations and it takes somewhere about 31,000 years just to count to 1 trillion! Obviously, I didn’t finish counting. How much is the American public actually concerned and focused on this crisis? In the world of political sound bites and a million distractions, do we have enough time and understanding to tackle this problem? Wait a minute….what’s this? Anthony Weiner to address the press. Wonder what he has to say. He finally admitted! I knew he was lying the whole time. When did he find time to do all that? Anyways, where were we? Oh yes – the “debt crisis.” The administration is claiming that if the borrowing cap is not raised by August 2, our nation could face its first default ever. That does sound important. What does that mean? For starters, it could topple the already fledgling U.S. economy. That’s not good. What else? It could also impact the financial markets and raise U.S. interest rates. Whoa! We can’t have that. We need to get to work on this problem immediately……maybe right after we get the latest on Casey Anthony. This trial is so addictive. Just can’t seem to turn it off. That girl should just go ahead and confess. Funny, how it reminds me of another high-profile case. Time out! Have we solved the “debt ceiling” problem yet? Well, the President is meeting with John Boehner at the Joint Base Andrews’ golf course. That’s it! We just need to come together on a friendly round of golf and these things just work themselves out. Sigh!!! If only it were that simple. But it was a great photo-op. We might just see that photo in the campaign for 2012 with the caption – “Reaching across the aisle.” Hey! There’s an idea. Why don’t we try a bi-partisan negotiation to resolve the debt-crisis? Who can we find to lead something so crucial and diplomatic? How about Joe Biden? But first, someone should brief him on the matter. Didn’t he fall asleep during the President’s speech on the deficit reduction at George Washington University? Two weeks later….the discussion has reached an impasse. No surprise. That seemed too easy. C’mon people – the clock is ticking. We really need to get to work on this debt crisis. Whoa!!! Put it all on hold. The jury has the verdict for Casey Anthony. WHAT??? NOT GUILTY!!! Are you kidding?!! How can they do that? I have to post my feelings on Facebook. Too late….About a million others beat me to it. I guess I’ll just watch people discuss this ad nauseam. Okay…I’m sick of this. Can we please get back to resolving our economic catastrophe? Tim Geithner (Treasury Secretary) is about to run out of all his “legal hoop-jumping” tricks. By the way, it is July now and the jobs report is in. The unemployment rate rose to 9.3% last month and there seems to be little hope that the hiring will increase in the second half of the year. This problem is getting worse and worse! The pressure is on! Partisan politics have to be set aside to fix a bigger problem. We can deal later with all the tax issues. Let’s just save the nation from the impending doom. While we’re at it – let’s not settle for a band-aid on the financial problem. We need something BIG and we need it now. If not now, when?!!

SNAP! Let’s focus. Before we get caught up in all this rhetoric and believe all these doomsday predictions, here are some answers that the awakened American demands: Is the $1.6 trillion tax raise over the next decade really a matter that we can “discuss later”? Has anyone actually seen the $4 trillion-dollar deal with the entitlement reform? Isn’t the already existing tax revenue enough to prevent any immediate debt default? Is the threat of the “debt ceiling” simply a ploy to railroad a budget without any spending cuts? To claim that “professional politicians” know what to do and the average American has no understanding of how things work is condescending and underestimating. We might seem distracted and pre-occupied at times but we know when something isn’t right.