Advice to Our Government

As sequestration is looming, I have one bit of advice to all who might have a part in solving the problem:

GROW UP!

The President and everyone in Congress is to blame, as are we, for demanding that government should do what we should do for ourselves.  We Americans are not children, needing someone to tell us what is best to do with our money, our bodies, and ultimately, our lives.

Sequestration would lop off about 2.5% of the increase in the federal budget, hardly enough to cause the End of the World as We Know It.  The problem comes because the President and the congressional leadership came to an agreement that was tantamount to blackmail:  slash spending OR ELSE we will slash it, in a way sure to be painful.  The agreement will cause much more pain than necessary by weakening our defense and suddenly firing thousands of necessary workers.  None of this is necessary; 2.5% of the increase is NOT a huge sacrifice; actually, it's not a sacrifice at all.

I've grown tired of watching politicians point fingers back and forth like children caught fighting on the playground.  "You cut first!"  "No, you!"  Sorry, folks.  We all are aware that trying to fix blame on someone else is just your attempt to avoid your own punishment.  So I must repeat, like the good mom I am:

GROW UP!

Since no one in Washington seems to have the courage--or the good sense--to fix their mistake, here is the grown-up way to remedy it:

• Every department head is to decide how to cut his/her budget 2.5%. It is up to them to decide how to make their division function on less money, whether that is letting people go, reducing lunch breaks, or not ordering paper clips, staplers, and new computers.
• Politicians are to stay out of the process, except for slashing their own budgets 2.5%.  No fair telling anyone else how to cut expenditures; take care of your own problem.  
• Mr. President, this solution includes you.  Slash your own budget 2.5%. Take one less vacation and tell Michelle and the girls to have a "stay-cation" like the rest of us.  

Cutting spending is never pleasant.  It requires self-discipline--and self-respect.  If spending needs to be cut, it's because circumstances have changed, or because self-control in purchasing has not been exercised.  Both of these conditions have occurred in the management of our national fiscal affairs.  So let's all take our medicine like grown-ups and solve the problem.

Emails, IV's, and a Logic Exercise

We got the coolest email yesterday from our son and his wife.  He had recorded their latest doctor's visit on his iPhone, and sent us a recording of our grandchild's heartbeat.  In the background you can hear the doctor explaining which heartbeat belonged to Mom and which to the baby.  My daughter-in-law is only about 11 weeks pregnant, but the doctor says very plainly, "And the faster one is the baby's."

Our admissions director at the college is also about 11 weeks pregnant.  She's having a bad time, and came to work over the weekend dragging an IV to keep her hydrated and fed.  Even though she feels ill most of the time, she smiles when she speaks of "the baby," and says, dreamily, "It will all be worth it."

Notice:  both babies (embryos, fetuses, buns in the oven, etc.) are babies.  Not just to their mothers, but to everyone around them--including the doctors.  Both young mothers have endured unpleasantness.  Pregnancy is neither easy nor romantic.

That got me thinking.  Last week the Obama/McCain town hall debate asked when a child was entitled to full rights.  McCain answered definitively, "at conception."  Obama waffled and said something about that being above his pay grade.  For someone who wishes to be the most powerful person in the world, he should know that there will be no one above his pay grade, so it is his duty to make up his mind.  I fear what he was trying to avoid saying was that human rights are to be reserved for the convenient, the wanted, and the perfect.  To acknowledge that view would be to acknowledge that he doesn't really believe in human rights at all, if the one needing the rights would cost time or money.  To Obama, "All men are created equal," but apparently there is debate either about what constitutes a human, or when, exactly, creation of said human has reached enough maturity to be deemed complete.  Such uncertainty about definitions ultimately leads to no definition at all.  The age at which one becomes eligible for rights could be redefined at will, so any given characteristic could mean that one was not really human.  Such was the logic that allowed the Holocaust.

Obama needs to go hear a few ultrasounds.

Here's to welcoming new babies--born and unborn!