 Finding Satisfaction
With Halloween and the World Series over, Thanksgiving just four weeks away, and Daylight Savings Time rolling to its end for this year, the minds of our staff members seem to be as unsettled as the leaves outside our office doors. Call it an early holiday distraction.
After all, while we're already discussing some of our favorite holiday foods, we're also torn today even thinking about food. In case you missed it, America's food stamp program is $5 billion shorter today, thanks to the obstruction of unhappy extremists in the GOP. For a program that only costs the average American 10� a day, yet multiples the power of a single dollar in our economy by $1.70 - all while preventing millions of elderly, disabled, children, and nearly a million desperately poor veterans from starving - there's no logic to why Republicans continue to fight to keep food out the mouths of their fellow Americans.
Still, the extremists in the Republican Party are continuing to fight for even more cuts in the Farm & Food Bill. Thankfully, there are some like Sen. Mike Johanns who believe a deal may yet be possible. We applaud Sen. Johanns' optimism, and hope that he's right, that an honest compromise can be reached on the farm bill, as well as many of the other bills finally being officially debated in Congress.
Of course, it would help Sen. Johanns and all of the members of U.S. Senate if their counterparts in the Republican-led House would actually stay in DC and do the work that is their responsibility, as members in both chambers did earlier this week. Don't look for the House to get back to that work level any time soon, though, as they're on vacation - excuse us, "working from their districts" - for the next two weeks.
For all the progress that may have been made in Washington this week, the fact is, extremist Republicans still seem perpetually angry and dissatisfied. This week's hearing on the Affordable Care Act, with Sec. Sebelius was a perfect example of that perpetual lack of satisfaction from those on the political right...
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