The title of this post is a common line spoken by friends & families of people who are the subject of A&E’s “Intervention”, or as the Mrs. Swanky calls it, “Trainwreck Show.” You’ll hear that line in the last 12 minutes when the family is shown finally staging an intervention with their substance-abuse-ridden loved one. One by one, the family members read off their written statements about how they love this person & how their addictions hurt them. It’s horrible television, in my opinion. And I don’t understand the desire to watch it. Give me documentaries on the history of brewing beer any day.
I couldn’t help but hear the title of the post in my head as I read today’s editorial in the Washington Examiner, “Feds are broke but keep right on spending.”
The two key words in that sentence are “structural imbalance.” Sounds like something beyond the ability of mere mortals to change, doesn’t it? Part of the natural order, kind of like the swine flu. It just happens. Out in the real world beyond Washington, “structural imbalance” means: Washington politicians are on a spending rampage the likes of which has never before been seen anywhere in human history. The spenders include President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, plus a supporting cast of bureaucrats like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his predecessor, Henry Paulson, and the Democratic majorities in the Senate and House (joined by a few Senate Republicans). These officials are terminally afflicted with what Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, calls “federal spending disease” (FSD) an incurable addiction in which the sufferer is utterly unable to stop spending other people’s money. An intervention by voters is the only effective treatment.
Federal Spending Disease. Great. Now when I go to vote, I’m going to be thinking of it in terms of an intervention, rather than just in terms of sending someone off to represent my wishes & needs. Maybe the Tea Parties can be rebranded as mass-group interventions?