No More Short-Term Solutions To Long-Term Problems
The second district Blue Dot is in full swing. Recently, numerous politicians and party officials have visited us. The list includes Tim Walz and his wife, RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, House minority leader Hakkem Jeffries, Lindsey Graham, and Andrew Yang, just to name a few.
I had the opportunity to talk to Andrew Yang for about 45 minutes while he was in town. He was here to support Dan Osborn and discuss the importance of the blue dot, the benefits of ranked-choice voting, open primaries, and the problems with the current two-party system.
One of the things that stuck with me in our conversation was something Yang told me he heard from a Senator: ‘the problem’ is worth more to a politician than trying to fix ‘the problem’.
Think about it. Why should they fix the problems when instead of both parties working together to find a compromise, they can collect campaign donations by blaming the other side for never getting anything done? Plus, if they try to fix a problem there’s bound to be a point or two in the compromise that their donors won’t like, and their political opponents could use against them when they run for reelection.
Think about the problems we all know about that never get resolved.
Why has nothing been done about controlling our national debt? We’ve known it’s been a problem for decades, yet we keep kicking the can down the road and printing more money. Our debt continues to grow under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. It’s gotten so far out of control that neither Vice President Harris nor Former President Trump are even addressing it as a campaign issue. We the people have become so complacent with this insurmountable debt that we’re not even demanding it be addressed. And the Boomers (of which I am one), who are responsible for most of this debt will soon be dead, leaving the problem for their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren.
Speaking of the Boomers, Social Security and Medicare are all on track to be out of money in about 10 years. We’ve known that’s the case for a long time, yet nothing has been done to shore up the programs. I doubt anything will be done until 2035 when Congress will panic and put a band-aid on it and kick the can further down the road. Just like Congress does with passing continuing resolutions on the budget to avoid a government shutdown. Instead of passing a long-term budget to stabilize government spending and shore up needed programs, they pass short-term solutions to long-term problems.
Don’t even get me started on the problems at the border. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the Senate finally put together a bipartisan bill to address the problem. It would have hired more immigration agents, provided resources to shore up the border, and hired more judges to speed up the process of deciding if someone claiming asylum really deserved it or should be sent back to their native country. It was the toughest and most comprehensive border bill in generations.
The problem was worth more to the Republicans than the solution, so Donald Trump told the Speaker of the House to put the kibosh on it. Once again nothing gets done.
Look, I get it. In a country of over 300 million people, you’re never going to get 100% consensus on anything, but is it too much to ask that once the election is over, they start acting like statesmen and stateswomen and stop acting like politicians? Am I just being naïve in having an old-school patriotic vision of how government is supposed to work?
I probably am, but nothing will change until we the people stop demagoguing problems and demand that the people we elect work together to fix them.
Our Founding Fathers never said what they gave us was perfect. They said it was to provide the groundwork to provide a MORE perfect union. In other words, America has always been great, but we can always be better.
The next step in achieving a more perfect union is for us voters to reward elected officials who work to fix problems instead of just benefitting from them. We need to make sure we not only keep the blue dot but become promoters of it so other states adopt the same electoral laws that we and Maine have, so fewer states will be ignored come Presidential election time.
Tom Becka is a long time Nebraska broadcaster who for over 30 years has been covering Omaha and Midwest issues on both radio and TV. He has been a guest on numerous national cable and news shows, filled in for nationally syndicated talk radio programs and Talkers Magazine has recognized him as one of the Top 100 talk show hosts in the country 10 times. Never afraid to ruffle some feathers, his ‘Becka’s Beat’ commentaries can be found online on Youtube and other digital platforms.
Opinions expressed by columnists in The Daily Record are not necessarily those of its management or staff, and do not constitute an endorsement or recommendation. Any errors or omissions should be called to our attention so that they may be corrected. Contact us at news@omahadailyrecord.com.
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