Fiscal Responsibility – Oh the pain!

The diagnosis of cancer is a shock to any patient and their family because it is such a devastating and life-threatening disease. Even so, there is a cure for it if caught early enough. But the cure can sometimes be worse than the disease.  Radiation treatment works well at destroying the cancer, but in doing that it nearly kills the body itself in the process. Many people going through radiation treatment have expressed the feeling that they wish they could die because of the pain involved with the cure. Yet, as unpleasant as this treatment may be, it is necessary if the patient hopes to survive.

Most people know that our economy is in serious financial trouble. Our government has run up so much debt that it is almost impossible to pay it off, but if this problem isn’t corrected then our economy will collapse and the result of that will be devastating to everyone. Because of this, we hear a clamor for government to stop spending more than it takes in; that is, until the cuts in spending affect us personally.  Then we clamor to cut everything else except what affects us.  However, if everyone felt that way then nothing would be cut from the federal budget.

Cutting the deficit is analogous to the country undergoing radiation treatment. Our financial cancer has spread so much and has invaded every corner of our economy that to cut anything is going to be painful, and the cure to our fiscal disease may seem worse than letting the problem continue. That’s when we will hear people loudly screaming to stop the treatment.

What Tea Party members must realize is that if we truly want our government to exercise fiscal responsibility, that doing so at this point is going to be extremely painful for everyone, including ourselves.  We are going to have to learn how to get along on far less from the government if we ever hope to convince others to do the same. When it comes to saving the fiscal body of our country, Tea Party members must be willing to not only set the example but teach others why it’s important to do the same and how to do it.