Legend has it that the emperor Nero played the fiddle while the ancient city of Rome burned for six days, destroying 70 percent of the city and leaving half of its population homeless.
While it is unlikely this actually happened, given that the violin hadn’t been invented yet, it is true that he was an unpopular, evil, ineffectual leader in a time of crises. Some believe he actually started the fire because he used this opportunity to build a magnificent palace surrounded by lush gardens for himself on the land that had been cleared by the fire.
Now it’s Congress that is fiddling around while the country is facing, not one, but two crises. The first is our national debt, which has reached a staggering $22 trillion, with no real plan for relief in sight.
So who owns our debt? The largest portion is owned by our trust funds, like Social Security, Office of Personal Management Retirement and the Military Retirement. It’s called robbing Peter to pay Paul. At some point Peter is going to wind up on the short end of the stick, or our children and grandchildren are going to wind up paying for our excess. Just how much more of a tax burden can your children bear? Currently the share of this debt for each individual living in the U.S. is $41,000.
The Bible warns us that the borrower will be a slave to the lender. Forty-two percent of this debt is owned by foreign governments and investors, with China, a communist country, holding the largest portion. This, too, does not bode well for our children.
The second crisis is at the border where we are no longer able to hold back those crossing illegally. We are being forced to release those we do catch into the country, never to be seen again, because we have no more facilities to hold them. The Democrats have told us there is no crisis, so I have a question for each of them. Last month agents arrested 66,000 attempting to cross illegally, and that doesn’t account for the thousands that simply slipped through undetected: So how many would constitute a crisis? Just give us a figure.
According to the latest polls, some 160 million people want to come here. Should we accept all 160 million no questions asked, no qualifications, no screening whatsoever? Isn’t that what you have been fighting for?
If you don’t believe the president, believe ICE chief Ronald Vitiello who is urging Congress to pass laws that would end the crisis, starting with one that would simply end the 20-day limit on family detentions. Seriously, how long would that take?
If you don’t believe Vitiello, believe Obama’s Border Patrol chief Mark Morgan who says this is “absolutely a national emergency!”
This second crisis is not unrelated to the first. The Center for Immigration Studies’ in-depth analysis estimates that every illegal immigrant will cost the U.S. over $82,191. So how much of this debt are you willing to pass on to your children?
Congress is indeed fiddling while the U.S. burns through red ink, manpower, lost jobs and wages, not to mention the very real human toll. These inept, uncaring lawmakers won’t do anything, because we don’t demand it.
This week, the House actually spent its valuable time trying to override President Trump’s declaration of a border emergency. In addition, it will spend time on a resolution disapproving the ban on transgenders in the military. Last, but not least, is the Paycheck Fairness Act, which Democrats reintroduced this year for the 11th time. It’s a burdensome feminist notion straining to prove that the disparity in the wages of men and women is a result of discrimination instead of choices made in the workplace.
Not to be outdone, the Senate wasted its precious time trying to get a vote on the Green New Deal in an effort to put Democrats who support it on record. Democrats, of course, voted against allowing it to come to the floor because that’s the way our dysfunctional Senate works. However, the Senate will manage to vote on a supplemental bill for national emergencies without any offsets because that is what our lawmakers do best. What’s another $12 billion outside the normal appropriations process to these scoundrels who represent us?
Nothing of importance will get done in the 116th Congress. It will continue to fiddle while it burns through money at a rapid rate.
Meanwhile the press will do its own fiddling by continuing to debate the Muller report, and the public will be none the wiser.
