In a demonstration of official Washington's often curious logic, the Senate is expected to vote down both a slashing GOP budget bill and a less painful Democratic plan to demonstrate progress instead of gridlock.
The idea is to show both sides that they need to move toward each other to break a bitter stalemate over how much to cut spending as Congress wraps up last year's unfinished budget work. The combatants are facing a March 18 deadline that already has Republicans in the House drafting another stopgap spending measure to make sure the government doesn't shut down if a broader agreement isn't reached by them.
Let me put this into average American household terms:
Say that a married couple, both working, has a home with a mortgage of $1000. That payment includes the taxes on the property and the property insurance. The couple also pays an electric bill, a natural gas bill and a cable bill each month.
Now one of the two loses their job. Down to just one income, the couple has some decisions to make about what to cut out of their household budget and what to keep in the budget. They have to cut about $1000 per month in expenses in order to make their household budge balance.
Instead of making the hard choices, they decide for starters to eliminate the cable and see how it goes. You don't need a degree in economics to figure out that it won't take long and the couple will be broke, unable to meet their household budget.
That's exactly what is happening at the Federal level currently. Given the magnitude of the US deficit and debt, it seems that there would be meaningful discussions about getting spending under control, but instead the two parties are arguing about the cable bill.
-Tom
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