Our disgraceful Congress

The words of the famous four-line Latin poem by Phaedrus come to mind:

 “A mountain had gone into labour and was groaning terribly. Such rumours excited great expectations all over the country. In the end, however, the mountain gave birth to a mouse.”

This is an apt description of the bipartisan budget deal proposed by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan.

The best they could do was offer $23 billion in deficit reduction over 10 years while allowing the current $17-trillion national debt grow by trillions more in that same period.

Our lawmakers ought to be embarrassed. Instead, they are celebrating!

The agreement does prove several things: 1) Neither Democrats nor Republicans are serious about dealing with the national debt;  2) Democrats oppose any kind of spending reasonable spending restraint; 3) Republicans may offer some resistance to domestic spending increases but want to continue to waste money on the military in exchange for votes; 4) Republicans would not trade even modest tax increases for serious deficit reduction.

You can always see who the winners and losers are in such a deal — if we can call it that. Democrats are more apt to embrace it than Republicans. That is the advantage of holding the White House.

Voters ought to consider giving one party control of both branches of Congress in the 2016 election. A divided Congress is getting us nowhere.