Kindergarten Drop-outs

Raise your hand if you're sickened by the games being played in Washington right now.  Go ahead, raise 'em high.  But wait!  Don't start fighting about whose hand is raised higher!

Though I've not read the book, I feel there's a significant amount of truth in the saying "Everything I need to know I learned in Kindergarten." Let's list a few, shall we?

1. Always share crayons, glue, smiles, and hugs.
2. Play nice with others, even if someone accidentally broke your crayon.
3. Always say "Please" and "Thank you" - it makes people happy.
4. Don't talk when somebody else is talking.
5. Take turns with everyone.
6. Listen to the teacher or person in charge - they probably know what they're talking about.
7. Naps are important.
8. So is play time.
9. If you make someone mad, say you're sorry and help them feel better.
10. Macaroni is a perfectly legitimate art medium.

As we grow up we learn that life is a little more complicated than all that.  Mysterious and terrifying things called "obligations" start popping up around us, pushing and shoving one another in a vainglorious attempt to grab our attention and dedication.  Classmates turn into coworkers who occasionally turn into opponents.  "Please" and "Thank you" get thrown around aimlessly without consideration of their true meanings.  And play time becomes synonymous with "waste of time," which has a tendency to make grown-ups grumpy.

Not everyone becomes so jaded; some people remember what they learned when they were little and might even adhere to many of these basic rules.  But others appear to so blatantly disregard these tenets that I wonder if they even so much as attended kindergarten.  *cough*POLITICIANS*cough*

 I won't even try to pretend that I have a strong understanding of economics, policy, or national debt, but it seems to me that the politicians in Washington right now don't understand it either.  First of all, the question of whether or not the debt ceiling should be raised should be a no-brainer.  It's an arbitrary ceiling for an arbitrary amount of money that will be spent regardless of where our imaginary ceiling is.  No, that's not the way it should be, but it's the way it is.  So, Washington, if any of your are reading this (which is highly unlikely since they're supposed to be fixing the country instead of reading a puny little blog), just do it already and stop freaking everybody out!

It seems to me that what they're really debating is how to avoid this issue in the future.  Good!  Great start!  They're right - we shouldn't even have to be having this conversation.  The federal government should find a way to behave just like everybody else and spend within their means or pay the consequences.  Except we don't want them to pay the consequences because that really means that we - people who probably did nothing wrong - pay the consequences for them.  So that leaves spending within their means as the only option.

To choose that option means deciding among a number of other options that all help to answer the question "How?"  Do we cut back on federal funding?  Do we take a break from giving money to certain programs or endeavors in order to pay back our debt?  Do we raise taxes and ask the citizens of the country to contribute a little more?  What to do, what to do...

Ideally it would be a combination of all the options, configured in a way that most accurately addresses and serves to fix the problem while not jeopardizing the country or its people.  This is a serious issue and one that should be considered, debated, worked on, revised, and discussed by all members of congress over an adequate but not unreasonable period of time.

My recommendation to Congress?  Go ahead and raise the ceiling THEN tackle the issues that you should have been tackling all along.

But I digress; that's not what I wanted to talk about.  What I really wanted to say was: "Hey, politicians! Shut up and play nice!"

Remember those rules from kindergarten?  What happened?  It's like Capitol Hill has turned into a battlefield for a heated game of Tug of War, and no matter what you think about the people on your team you have to pull along with them or risk losing.  And nobody wants to lose.

Maybe the Mayans were right.  The world will end in 2012, which just so happens to be an election year.  Prepare yourselves, because unless our elected officials remember what it means to share, take turns, and play nice with others, it will only get worse from here.