July 27th, 2011, By Dana Haugh
Less than a week to go until our country self-destructs in a financial massacre. It seems like only yesterday I was writing about the August 2 deadline and how government officials better get their act together to come up with a plan before we default. I honestly thought they would have figured something out by now. It’s alright to make fun of the situation, how the “children” won’t play nice and refuse to agree on a course of action– but with less than 7 days remaining, I have to say, it’s a little unsettling. I’m not exactly sure how directly this is going to affect you and me, but I can only imagine it can’t be good.
As most of you know already, if Congress doesn’t come up with a good proposal (good really isn’t the right word, maybe ‘workable’.. ANYTHING) the United States will lose its borrowing rights and subsequently run out of money to pay the bills. We’ve all been in that situation before, I’m sure. Not knowing if your paycheck will stretch to the end of the week, using plastic in the hopes that eventually you’ll have the
money. That’s all well and good on a small scale, but it’s a little terrifying when you are living in a country that keeps falling deeper and deeper into debt, using the charge card, knowing there’s no money, but being forced to spend anyway. And we, as little citizens of this “great” nation, aren’t able to do anything about it. We can’t lend our country a little extra cash (pay me back whenever you can, America!) or help them budget and consolidate their bills down into one, easy monthly payment.
Instead, we have to sit and watch as the people who run our country, the ones we put in charge, struggle and fight and disagree with each other based on political differences and long-standing rivalry. Is this really necessary? Can’t they just put their differences aside, FOR ONCE, and come up with something that will benefit the country as a whole? What type of message is Congress sending the United States citizens? “We’ve known we are in a crisis but we are going to wait until the last minute to do anything about it, but I’m still angry with so-and-so and I’m not going to accept his idea because I don’t like him, but here’s my idea and you all should like this…”
A budget plan won’t make everything better (by the time a proposal is agreed upon, our reputation as AAA borrowers will be long gone), but it might buy us some time. It’s time to put your differences aside, elephants and donkeys of America. Remember our motto? “United We Stand, Divided We Fall.” Well, we’re falling, and falling fast.