The discussion in Washington, D.C., has changed dramatically this year, from how to spend federal dollars to where to cut, both short-term and for the long run.
That seismic shift in political debate is necessary because we are rapidly approaching a point where our national debt could put our current economy, not to mention the fortunes of future generations, at great risk. The International Monetary Fund warned that the United States must get its debt under control quickly.
Furthermore, as Alan Simpson has said, this is different than the debt and deficit scenario of the 1990s. “We can’t grow our way out of this,” said Simpson, a Republican former senator from Wyoming. With Erskine Bowles, a Democrat and former adviser to President Bill Clinton, Simpson chaired President Barack Obama’s Deficit Reduction Commission last year.
Together, the two men drafted a deficit and debt reduction plan that drew bipartisan support — and criticism. But it didn’t win enough votes on the 15-member commission to be formally submitted to Congress.
However, the so-called Gang of Six — three Democrats and three Republicans in the Senate — will reportedly introduce legislation based on the Simpson-Bowles plan.
For a variety of reasons, we believe the Simpson-Bowles plan is preferable to either the proposal proffered by Obama, or Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan, which was approved by the House of Representatives. …
The time is now to seriously attack deficits and the debt. And Simpson-Bowles should be the foundation for doing so.
The Daily Sentinel, Grand Junction, Colo. (April 19)
Air traffic terminations
That’s just like the federal government — instead of assigning blame, instead of acknowledging that there is really such a thing as intentionally underperforming individuals, it overlooks the obvious. These slackers, people who don’t do their jobs because they don’t want to and feel they don’t have to, are often fodder for deep analysis that often has citizens of this nation wondering if they and their government are from the same planet.
The federal government’s response to sleeping air traffic controllers is a typical example. Rather than showing backbone and admitting that some people just can’t — or won’t — handle the job given them, the Federal Aviation Administration is changing the rules.
Come on, in any other century, people who fell asleep on the job, especially one where an unconscious state could lead to the deaths of hundreds of people, would automatically be fired. There would be no discussion. There would be no debate. There would be no suspension, and they certainly would be no re-evaluating of scheduling practices. It simply would be a relationship between employer and employee that ended in these words: You’re fired. It’s the old-fashioned way of doing business, but it works.
The Federal Aviation Administration decided to consider changes after the fifth air traffic controller allowed himself to fall into the slumbering arms of the sandman, this time at a regional radar facility in Miami that monitors high altitude flights. The man was not terminated. He was merely suspended, even though his unwakeful state put others in serious jeopardy.
The federal government needs to do a little waking up itself.
The Brunswick Ga. News (April 19)