Washington, Home of the Zax

Washington, Home of the Zax
The View from the Middle

Dr. Seuss has a great story about extreme stubbornness. It is the story about the Zax, which is sort of a brown hairy Grinch. It is a story of a North Going Zax, who will never take a step to either side, coming face to face with a South Going Zax, who will not move an inch to the east or the west. You can imagine the stalemate that occurs. They both stand there with their arms crossed, eyes closed and chins jutting out day after day, week after week and year after year. Of course, the world does not stop along with them. The days go by and the seasons change and they eventually build a highway over and around these disturbingly obstinate politicians, I mean Zax.

Last night, the country was treated to watching three Zax collide in our nation’s capital. And, just for good measure, these three Zax slathered their intransigence with a healthy dose of incompetence. While I think the President had a good message, we all must admit that he stumbled his way through the delivery. It could only have served as a distraction to his thesis.

And then Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer couldn’t have looked, sounded and acted more ridiculous. They were instantly compared to The American Gothic, the painting by Grant Wood of the stern, pitch fork wielding farmer and his equally gloomy wife. You really must admit that they were bad when they got mocked by MSNBC anchor, Brian Williams and Bill Clinton’s hatchet-man and Democrat commentator, James Carville.

I hope everyone has realized that we aren’t in the middle of a Trump shutdown, or a Pelosi shutdown or even another Schumer shutdown (although you have to admit that “Schumer Shutdown” just rolls off your tongue). This shutdown is owned by 536 anal-retentive politicians in Washington D.C. (The House, The Senate and the President), and what’s more disgusting is that this is being driven by an issue that the American people could resolve in about five minutes.

Nearly 80% of Americans believe we have either a crisis or a problem on our southern border. If you break that out along party lines, 91% of Republicans believe it is a crisis or a problem and even 71% of Democrats do. Those numbers line up almost perfectly, as you might imagine, with the percent of Americans who want better border security. So, this is yet another example of politicians intentionally confusing the “what” with the “how”. 80% of Americans agree on the “what”. We need better border security. What these third grader impersonators are throwing a tantrum about is “how” to deliver on that agreed to goal.

The Democrats say they want more drones, more people, more camera’s and more scrutiny at the ports of entry. Great! The vast majority of Americans would gladly agree with that. The Republicans want a physical barrier, not across the entire 2,000 miles, but about an additional 600 miles or so for a total of 1,250 miles. The cost for that in this budget is about five billion dollars. That is one tenth of one percent on our total government budget and I don’t believe that even needs to be additional spending at all. Remember, Nancy Pelosi’s current bill asks for $54 billion in foreign aid to other countries like Gaza, Syria and Pakistan. Pakistan? Really? This is $12 billion more than the President asked for. Cut this to $7 billion extra or a total of just under $50 billion dollars and we can build the wall and give money to people who would like to slit all of our throats.

63% of Americans, almost two out of three support a wall or some sort of barrier on our southern border in exchange for considerations for the DACA recipients. I’m sure this number is higher amongst Republicans than Democrats, but that is what real negotiations looks like. Democrats get something, like citizenship for two million DACA young adults, and Republicans get an extension of our current wall and badly needed repairs for the 650 miles of walls and fences already in place. No one has to lose in this compromise. We, as a country, only lose if the pigheaded, narrow-minded, obdurate, anal-retentive politicians can stop thinking about themselves and start thinking about the American people.

Oh, have I mentioned the term limits amendment for Congress that Ted Cruz and Francis Rooney are proposing? There may be a connection here!!