Why are we playing Chicken with our national debt ceiling?

Our politicians are playing chicken with regard to our national debt limit.  It’s not their fault.  It’s us.  We voters are the problem.  We put these guys in office—far right and far left!

What we need to do is to vote in Good Sense, non-extreme people who will come at this with a good sense approach.  Why are we not doing this?

First let’s ask, “What does a good sense approach look like?”

A good sense approach is balanced, appropriately increasing taxes AND cutting expenditures in the best measured way possible.

A good sense approach will not relieve the wealthy of tax burdens at the expense of the middle class and the poor or needy, but appropriately spreads the burden responsibly, commensurable with income, status, and ability.

A good sense approach is therefore fair and just and hurts as few people as possible, especially the weak and vulnerable, appropriately taking into account citizens with special needs.  That is, a good sense approach considers the economic health and welfare of all its citizens and provides for special needs within reasonable and considerate limits.

A good sense approach makes practical realistic decisions based on solid financial facts and figures and refuses to be chained to political idealism and party extremism or misled by ideological sound-bites.  A good sense approach therefore avoids extreme left and right politics and is anchored by truth, logic, reason, and, well, Good Sense, producing reasonable, balanced, practical, and effective results.

Yet politicians know that this kind of good sense approach does not “sell.”  It doesn’t get them elected.  They know that we voters seem to only listen to extreme self-pleasing, hard-hitting, self-ingratiating politics rather than rational, reasonable, balanced politics.  And so, they’re giving the voters what they asked for and that’s why we’re in trouble.

We voters have voted in these reactionary, tit-for-tat, extremist representatives.  So we can also stop them.  At least I’d like to think we can.  I know we should.  But I think we’re too spoiled and we have lost sight of the bigger picture.  “My way or the highway” is our new personal and political motto and our elected representatives have embraced this.  And that’s our problem.