Opportunity Lost

"I take it you don't really care about the part you had in breaking one of the finest men you'll ever know. Add to it that as Air Exec, you were automatically in command the moment Colonel Davenport left. And you met that responsiblity exactly as you met his need: you ran out on it."
--General Frank Savage (Twelve O'Clock High)

When history looks back on America's fiscal train wreck, one question likely to surface is "When was the last time that the United States could have proactively changed course in order to avoid pending disaster?"

That day could have been yesterday when the House voted on S.365, better known as the Budget Control Act of 2011.

The set up seemed perfect. Republicans won a landslide victory last November on the back of the Tea Party movement, a movement grounded in the values of limited government and fiscal responsibility. Seemingly, the GOP possessed a mandate to stop American's spending addiction in its tracks. All that was required was for House Republicans, with a dominant majority, to vote no to more debt and spending.

But it wasn't to be. Some Republicans revealed their true colors as proponents of Big Government. Some of the new guard were co-opted by the old school. Others simply lost their nerve and did not want to be accountable for the consequences of standing firm.

In the end, House Republicans shirked their responsibilities to the Constitution and caved. House Republicans overwhelmingly voted in favor of more debt and spending. Sadly, more Democrats opposed the bill than Republicans.

As a result, another $2.5 trillion of debt will be injected into the veins that feed our borrowing and spending addiction.

And with it, the last chance to pull ourselves back from the brink may have been squandered.