Only compromise can clean the mess

Wow! After reading George Will’s column in support of the tea party and against President Obama, I was dismayed that he could spew such utter nonsense. Is the country in financial trouble? Of course! Do we have to rein in spending? Of course! Do some if not all entitlement programs need to be looked at with an eye to cost savings? Of course! However, our deficit didn’t accumulate overnight and it will take time, discussion, and compromise to fix it.

I think the tea party’s stance is not brave, principled, or correct — I think it’s cowardly. Actually, the tea party’s intransigence is the easy way out; compromise is always difficult, but it is the only course a person should ever think of pursuing. President Obama has done a great job dealing with the horrendous mess he inherited. Yes, inherited. No matter what George Will or anyone else says, President Obama inherited this mess that all of us helped create.

Now is the time to come together, to admit we all made mistakes and to work toward fixing things. The current state we find ourselves in is not a well-circumscribed “cancer” that we can be easily cut out without harming its host (as George Will and the tea party suggest), but, a “disease” affecting our country that will take a multidisciplinary, thoughtful and, yes, compromising approach that demands great leadership that puts the country first.

Unlike George Will and the tea party, I sincerely hope that for the sake of our country the objective of our thoughts and efforts will be to find a solution rather than to drive President Obama out. “We all” are the problem and “we all” must develop a solution.

George S. Motto

Arlington Heights