THE DEMS ARE BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE WITH H.R. 4314

There's a bill before Congress that will be voted on soon to allow for the government to increase the debt ceiling to nearly $12.5 trillion, and while I fully understand the gist of the bill, which is to allow for the Federal Government to continue to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, to continue to fund veterans hospitals operations, and to continue to afford payments to be made to social security and medicare recipients—among other things, of course—the fact of the matter is that we do not have any more money to spend.

Granted, Congress asking for more money is nothing new. We've been here too many other times in the past to even begin counting, republican and democrat alike. The government spends money, introduces programs, entitlements, and all sorts of other things. And then the bills come in. The bills have to paid. In short that's how the current democratic leadership are framing their argument—and oh yeah, old ladies will starve, troops will die...here we go again. We asked for all this stuff and now that the bill has come in, somehow we have to be able to pay for it. And the sad truth is that without passing H.R. 4314, we can't do it.

Let us keep in mind that the bill will pass. Poor little old ladies will still get their medicare and their social security checks will still arrive each month in the mail. American troops won't be left to defend themselves with guns but no bullets.

That aside, we have got to come to a very logical conclusion now, don't we? It's because of that fact that I brought up just a couple of paragraphs ago. We do not have any more money to spend.

I side with the republicans on this issue that H.R. 4314 is not the right direction. I also side with the democrats that we have to pay our bills, and so long as the charges have been made and the programs are in need of funding, we're simply going to have to do it. But now is the time for everyone in our Congress to finally sit down and get to the heart of the matter. We cannot continue to simply spend, spend, spend, and then keep on coming back asking for more and more debt to be allowed. We have to form a committee to take a look at government spending, period. Because unless we address the issues of the spending, raising the debt ceiling time and time again will do nothing to help us. It will serve to put more debt onto the backs of each and every American, and it will serve to stunt our continued growth as a nation. This is nothing more than maxing out your credit card bill and then asking the bank to raise your limit so you can keep spending foolishly.

I say the democrats are barking up the wrong tree because they have not included in the bill, a comprehensive examination into current spending, and how we can begin the process of reducing it. There's plenty of room to include the language in the bill. The recent health care bill proves there's no shortage of paper available in Washington. Republicans have several bills that can't even make it to the House floor that at least offer up alternatives to spending. I'm not saying they are the solution or that they are not contributors to the problem, but until someone has a better idea, H.R. 4314 is just more of the same old crap however necessary it may well be in the near term.