Only Congress can fix this mess

Only Congress can fix this mess

AMay 14 editorial declared, “Budget deficit commission must lead way to real progress.”

Let us cut to the chase. The Congress is the only place that the budget can be put in balance. It will not be easy, but that is the only place. Three items that are untouchable, Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA. Members of the military, active or discharged, they are a priority. Medicare and Medicaid need no explanation.

Every member of Congress has his or her hand out to benefit his or her district or state. Each member of Congress must work with every other member to approve expenditures only if the need is for a vital project and is necessary for immediate action. Only Congress can solve this problem. That is why they were elected in the first place, and it is their responsibility, not a commission named by the president. We know the agenda of those in Congress, but the commission may have a different agenda. Let Congress do the job. We know who they are.

Obviously the budget will befuddle Congress for some time. However, there is another item of prime necessity for attention. That is the financial debacle that has been in meltdown since November 12, 1999. That is when the forerunner of this meltdown began. It was called the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. The headline on the news item relaying that information to the public announced “Law OKs one-stop financial shopping.” This process took about 20 years and millions of lobbying dollars to pass. In effect it repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that was put in place to regulate the financial community for the excesses that fueled the demise of the banking institutions at that time.

It is time that Congress address the regulations needed now to right this absconding of billions of taxpayers’ dollars by the financial institutions.

Leonard J. Sainato, Warren