Boehner's Dilemma

You just can't get there from here, Mr. Boehner.

You say the first thing you want to do in 2011 is have the Republican controlled House of Representatives cut $100 billion in spending from the federal budget. When asked for specific areas he plans to cut, he says he will start with the budget of Congress -- in other words, the legislative branch. So here's what you need to know. If he succeeded in cutting out the entire legislative branch, that is, fire all 535 members of Congress and their staffs, and all the people who work for them at the Library of Congress and turn off all the lights, he would barely save $4 billion. So, John, you have only $96 billion more to eliminate in order to fulfill your pledge. YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE, JOHN, SO PLEASE QUIT TRYING TO SELL THIS CLAPTRAP TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

Until members of Congress tell you that are seriously ready to address the entitlement programs of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and that old sacred cow, Defense Spending, there will not be a serious attempt to get federal spending under control. He knows it, his Republican members know it, and now you know it. When are we going to stand up in Town Hall Meetings and tell these people we are NOT BUYING ANY MORE of their empty politically expedient promises?

And when are we going to tell them to quit trying to return us to the time of Washington and Jefferson, a time when we had the interests of only 4 million citizens to consider. Today we have nearly 309 million citizens, according to the latest Census, and their interests are diverse, their problems complex, and our nation's role on the international stage has changed.

Mr. Boehner, do you really want to help?

Get off the stage and take your little tea party with you.

Let some grown ups, willing to take the political heat take your place, do the hard work, make the difficult decisions and get our nation's house in order. That's what Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would want you to do.

Christmas greeting from Murrow

As most of my readers know, Ed Murrow is one my heroes in the world of journalism. As we approach Christmas 2010, I thought I would use Mr. Murrow's words to send a Christmas greeting to a few folks.

To Democrats and Republicans:
"We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late."

To Glenn Beck:
"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar."

To Rush Limbaugh:
"No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices."

To the Rest of Us:
"Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live."

Merry Christmas to all and to all, "Good night and good luck."