To the Editor:

It’s time for another installment of “Name That Shameless Politician.” Who said:

“Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit”?

Answer - Barack Obama, March 16, 2006. Interesting choices of words…”the buck stops here,” “failure of leadership,” “America deserves better.”

The debt limit is next week’s story.  The President has said he will not negotiate on this. Just think about that term and it’s meaning for a minute and digest what they are even looking for… a debt limit increase. Essentially saying “we haven’t borrowed enough to make the interest payments on what we previously borrowed so we need to borrow more.” The federal government needs a loan to pay back the interest (not the principal) on the previous loan. A teen-aged child asking this would get what type of reply? Coupled with the endless money printing of the Federal Reserve, even a mild increase in long term rates will significantly impact our publicly held debt for generations. A debt limit increase should only be negotiated with a balanced budget. This is not a complex subject. He likes to talk to the American public using sophomoric analogies so I’ll use one. At some point, Mr President, Visa/Master Card is going to stop sending the offers in the mail; you need to go on a diet of rice and beans until the credit cards are paid off! For the record, I have no confidence this Congress will do anything other than further burden the American public and increase the limit with zero concessions.

The current government slowdown also deserves a little attention. No doubt Blumenthal, Murphy and Estes are falling over themselves to back the President in his effort to dismantle the economy as long as they can blame the opponents. Although I’ve given up on this Congress’ unwillingness to do their jobs and pass a budget, I have hope someday we will elect adults who care about the jobs for which they are hired. The current employees of The Capitol are almost entirely useless. Either way, I haven’t noticed the federal slowdown (the term shutdown is disqualified while 87 percent of the Federal Government is still up and running) and I wonder if there is a way to slowdown a lot more. Maybe we can slowdown the entire Departments of Energy and Agriculture? That should save a few bucks and be equally unnoticeable.

A real leader would be telling the American people, “we’ll get through this.” Instead we get name calling and finger pointing.  Bill Clinton said it best in a quote from Edward Klein’s book, “Barack Obama is an amateur.”

Elections matter.

Joe Duffy

5 Thomas Circle, Sandy Hook                    October 8, 2013