Guest Post: Destructive path chosen by Obama, Democrats

Ken Roberts, an Eye reader from Apollo Beach, provides a guest post today.  His article was published on the Tampa Tribune's editorial page yesterday as the Letter of the Day and if you missed it, please read.

Destructive path chosen by Obama, Democrats

The thing about the shutdown that angers me the most is the truth. The truth is that this debt-ceiling method of negotiating a budget and spending limits is the process preferred by the president and his party. It was selected by the president and his party very early on in his first administration.

The time-tested and legal way to negotiate a budget is for the Senate and the House to each pass a budget, then negotiate to produce one budget from the two offered, and then send that to the president. The Senate, run by Harry Reid and dominated by Democrats, has refused to do this, and until this year refused to produce a budget for more than four years. This leaves the House only one remedy, and that is to use its constitutional power of the purse to withhold funds and try to force negotiation.

Each time the House tries this, the president and the Democrats, reinforced by the media, call them unreasonable and complain that threatening to shut down the government is irresponsible. But we must remember, the House is acting at the behest of constituents who see the danger in continuing to print money and spend more than we take in, with disastrous long-term consequences for our country and every American — indeed, for the world.

Many congressmen were specifically elected in 2012 to work as hard as they could to reduce spending and get our budget balanced. Each time, however, the press spouts the party line of the president and points fingers at the Republicans. They completely ignore the facts that Reid and the president have chosen this path by their refusal to follow the law and reach a budget agreement the way presidents and governments did for decades before them.

If the president and the Democratic leadership really wanted to negotiate — if they were really interested in working together and reaching compromise that involves all the people — they would use the legislative process designed to do that. But they force us all to live with their choice so they can have everything they want — without having to compromise.

Ken Roberts

Apollo Beach