Budget deal hardly “real governing”

Their hands must be sore, they have been so busy patting themselves on the back in Washington. Congress is giddy after finally passing a government spending bill that allowed the federal government to reopen after yet another brief shutdown. You’d think they had won the Super Bowl. But in fact, all they did was spend our money, a lot of it, to buy votes. There was a lot of mutual back scratching in this pricey deal. A $400 billion spending bill. More money for both the military and domestic programs. Senator Chuck Schumer hailed the deal, calling it real governing. How is barely being able to keep the government open then throwing our money around real governimg? The bill contains an $80 billion increase in spending for defense. Nondefense programs will get another $60 billion, on top of existing spending. And those numbers will rise yet again the following year. Why is spending more of our money the best answer they can come up with? Why is the answer never to reduce spending? To take a critical look at what we are spending, and what we are getting in return. That would be real governing.