A Diet for Government

This country’s immense debt has been the subject of a great many news stories of late and politicians on both sides of the aisle have attempted to state their case. Conservatives want to make drastic cuts to entitlement programs while liberals want to maintain the status quo with regard to spending and merely increase taxes in the misguided belief that this will fund the aforementioned spending.



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Some on the left have made the argument that conservatives never cared much about deficit spending and debt until Barack Obama became president. They chide the Republicans for allegedly failing to make this an issue under President Bush. This may be true to a point although there are a number of politicians (i.e., Rep. Ron Paul – R-TX) that have been railing about the debt problem for years. But, what these critics of the critics fail to mention is the fact that, for most of President Bush’s term, the economy was comparatively robust. Does this mean that racking up trillions in debt was “good”? Not by any stretch. But the issue did not carry the sense of urgency that it does now – now that we find our nation’s economy mired in the economic equivalent of the Horse Latitudes. 

 But, just because we spent like the proverbial drunken sailor for decades does not mean that we should continue on this track, does it? Following is an analogy for the critics of those that have been attempting to curb the country’s debt – specifically, individuals like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI): 

 Let us, for a moment, assume that you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, you are obese and in poor physical condition. You decide that you are overdue for a doctor’s visit so you make an appointment with your physician for a complete physical. Your doctor examines you and tells you that you are fifty pounds overweight; you have high blood pressure and your cholesterol is high. The doctor scolds you for your lifestyle choices and proceeds to tell you that, if you do not make changes quickly, you will die an early death. Your doctor tells you to stop smoking, to quit eating bacon double cheeseburgers, potato chips, and chocolate cake. He tells you that, unless you make drastic lifestyle changes, you are a prime candidate for diabetes, a heart attack, or a stroke. He orders you to change your diet and get more exercise. “But, wait, doctor,” you plead. “I have been smoking and eating bacon double cheeseburgers and chocolate cake since I was a kid. Why do I have to stop now? My previous doctor never told me that my diet was a problem.” 

Does this mean that you are not going to listen to your doctor? Does this mean that you are going to continue with your slovenly, gluttonous ways? Unless you do not care whether or not you die an early death, you are NOT going to continue. You are going to get your act together. You are going to quit smoking and you are going to start eating more fruits and vegetables and you are going to start exercising.

 So, why in the world, with our nation’s economy sitting on the precipice, are we even THINKING about continuing down this same path? It does not matter HOW much money George Bush spent. That was then; this is now. And, for the last two years of his term (while the economy was beginning to unravel), Bush had a Democratically-controlled Congress that plunged us five trillion dollars farther into debt under the stewardship of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

 We the people need to change our fiscal lifestyle. We need to knock it off with the economic bacon double cheeseburgers and cigarettes. We need to start exercising – exercising fiscal restraint. Or our economy and our country are going to die a certain, unpleasant economic death.