Accountability, not just compromise

I have a problem with your opinion on Dec. 22 and your position that the Tea Party is a faction of ideologues that “openly and stridently professes its opposition to any level of compromise.” First, these people were elected specifically to oppose our out-of-control spending — period. Face the facts: We are broke as a nation, and compromise is what has brought us to the precipice. It is not the brinkmanship that has brought us to the brink of financial disaster, it is the overspending. We don’t have a compromise problem; we have a spending problem.

Fiscal conservatives are always urged to compromise and spend more. If you are broke and someone suggests that you spend $1,000 more or $100 billion more and you are already drowning in debt, is it prudent to spend $500 or $50 billion more as a reasonable compromise? This is what you keep demanding in the spirit of bipartisan compromise.

You are bemoaning the failure to pass a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and laud it as a suitable compromise when even the president asked for a one-year extension. You demand compromise on new spending and expansion of entitlements and assistance to the disadvantaged. But you never demand accountability on government. We are heading to the same fate as Greece, Italy, Spain, France with their out-of-control social benefit systems. I can see government workers and government assistance recipients protesting about cuts in their benefits (Oh, I guess we already did in Madison, Wis., and with Occupy Wall Street.)

The Daily Herald is one of the cheerleaders driving us to that position. Wake up — the cliff is straight ahead and you are urging that we push the accelerator to see if we can jump the Grand Canyon and somehow miraculously land on the other side unscathed.

Ed Meyer

Palatine