Fiddling While Rome Burns

No one in the media is saying it, so I will: The people in Washington are unfit to rule this great country.

No one is speaking out about the absolute and utter cluelessness of those in Washington.  No one.

The Democrats are the drunken sailors, wanting simply to have more taxes so they can spend even more. They cannot even get their minds around what they are spending, because they (the Senate, that is) have not proposed a budget, or responded to the budgets proposed by the House, for four straight years.

The Republicans are the hostage victims, suffering from "the Stockholm syndrome." All they can do is try to figure out ways in which they can please the Democrats and the Democrat-controlled media, and pass "a few little tax increases" in exchange for promised spending cuts that never materialize.

The President is a poseur. He has no clue what the country needs. He remains completely aloof from any initiatives that might move it in the right direction, and thinks that he can look "presidential" in the process. We might as well have an empty Coke bottle in the White House.

The freshmen in the House are silenced by the fear of retribution from the idiots that call themselves the "house leadership."

The Democrats in the House are in lockstep, through their senile "leader" Nancy Pelosi, with the Democrats in the Senate, under "Do-Nothing" Harry Reid -- i.e., "Do nothing, and let the Republicans take all the blame." ("And above all, never, ever pass a budget.")

The Secretary of the Treasury can only cry "Wolf! Wolf! We're hitting the spending ceiling!" so many times. Moreover, he's a lame duck, and for Obama to have delegated the "negotiations" to him shows what a farce this all is.

How can there even be a "spending ceiling" when there is no spending budget? Without a budget, what good is a spending ceiling -- what meaning does the term even have?

Why do these idiots continue to draw their salaries? What have they done in the past four years to earn them?

We need a new Constitutional Convention, and fast. Congress is a lost cause, so it will have to be called by the State legislatures (a minimum of two-thirds, or thirty-four States, will be necessary). No one currently holding a political or a party office should be allowed to be a delegate. They are the problem, not the solution.

Now, before everyone runs off and hollers "He's scrapping our Constitution!" -- hold on. Article V of our Constitution allows a Convention to be called for the purpose of proposing Amendments to it, and not for rewriting it totally. (Though once it gets going, who knows? The original Convention of 1787, remember, was called to "amend" the Articles of Confederation. I'm fine with whatever a properly called Convention decides is best to do.)

What needs amending? The qualifications of those who can vote for and hold federal offices, to begin with: namely, if you are taking more money from the government than you are paying in taxes, then you cannot vote or run for office, no matter how good the reason. Period. People who are happily accepting and spending other peoples' money should have no voice in how those other peoples' money should get spent.

Moreover, all current legislators and executive office holders should be permanently banned from ever holding a federal office again. Clean the whole house, I say, and start over. We certainly could not do worse, and we most likely will do far better.

Make the "power to coin money" (Art. I, Sec. 8) mean what it says. Let all the current officeholders receive their generous pensions in the current paper currency -- but forbid the printing of any more, and let the present stock of paper currency gradually disintegrate into dust and ashes. Define a new dollar coin based on the price the U. S. Mint is currently selling them for in paper currency, and let the coins establish their own exchange value for goods and services after that.

That would be a good start, and I'm sure others can easily come up with more.