No, this isn’t a public service message to eat your vegetables. At his White House Press Conference yesterday, President Obama reiterated his statement that both sides need to give a little bit in order to get a debt ceiling agreement done. He also rejected a stop-gap measure, stating, “That is not an acceptable approach. So we might as well do it now. Pull off the bandaid. Eat our peas. Now is the time to do it. If not now, when?” Thus far, Obama has been the only adult in the room. House Republicans are acting like infants, stomping their feet unless they get their way, and unwilling to compromise. Obama has expressed a willingness to make cuts in Democratic sacred cows like Medicare and Social Security in order to reach a deal, but Republicans won’t budge on cutting tax loopholes and ending the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans. The Tea Party has hijacked the Republican Party, and no Republican Congressmen have done the responsible thing and urged their own party to compromise a little to reach a deal that would cut trillions in government spending. Unfortunately, to paraphrase Pink Floyd, if you don’t eat your peas, you can’t have any tea. Who is mostly at fault in the failure of these negotiations—President Obama or House Republicans? Comment below. Photo from Third Age.
I am not up to date on this particular political football, which it clearly appears to be, but I always find it interesting how my Dem friends refer to their own as the adults and the others as children and yet my conservative friends see Obama and his crowd as kids with toys that they don’t know how to use, and themselves as the responsible adults trying to explain life to the youngsters.