WASHINGTON D.C.—After the President Obama’s State of the Nation speech, I felt like asking, “Is there a seat at the table for everyone?” The glaring dismissive looks he received from the Speaker of the House seemed chilling, although Congress tried to seem as though they were being bipartisan after the horrific shootings in Tucson, which injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, injured 11 others and killed six people. It’s sad that although the face of bipartisanship was evident to the cameras and anyone watching, the behind the scenes wrangling will probably never cease.
The one thing I hoped I would be hearing was the need for federal deficit reduction. The deficit needs serious cutting and neither political party seems interested in the recent report by the bipartisan deficit committee, which brought us a sobering look at how our deficit will eventually become a detriment to our nation’s long term security. This includes our military supremacy in the world.
The president said he was willing to discuss changes to his healthcare bill; however, isn’t this a little late to be discussing changes? Then again, the immature behavior of republicans in Congress during the past two years didn’t seem as though they were serious about anything other than being obstructionists. If this occurs during the next two years, then we will have only one side making decisions, and our best decisions are made with both parties at the table looking for a compromise.
The republican response to the president’s speech was very good. It was wonderful to finally have a politician be truly honest and admit that the deficit has not just become a problem in the past two years, as the Tea Party would have us believe. It became a problem over 25 years ago when our deficit ballooned to an astronomical $3 trillion under President Ronald Reagan. George Walker Bush created a Medicare prescription drug entitlement that has essentially drained Medicare, which was already on fiscal life support. That didn’t get scrutinized by the political right, but they surely have been a vocal minority group in the last two years about all spending.
Someone recently pointed out to me that the people who scream the loudest are not the majority of Americans after all. They are a group of unhappy people for various reasons, partly due to the president’s race, but Americans as a whole stand solidly together in wanting to fix the many serious matters that face our nation. We need the bipartisan political process to began today, not two years from now in hopes of having a new president in office.
Americans deserve a seat at the table, so that we can all give our opinions, debate civilly our beliefs and then join in compromise to solve the problems we all face. Hopefully both parties are serious in their commitment to make the next two years less argumentative and more productive for our nation’s sake.
