A Monument for the Ages

Congressmen and Senators come and go, and most leave no lasting impression upon the nation. Certainly they manage to affix their names to an edifice here or there within their districts, or find it adorned on a sign marking a section of highway we barrel past at 70 MPH, but few actually have the chance to see their individual efforts change the nation.

This Congress has that opportunity. This Congress has that responsibility. You could even argue that they have that fate. That opportunity, that responsibility, that fate, is to determine whether they have the fortitude to make a stand against the tyranny of excess and save a nation, or see their names cast to history as the Congress that lost the Republic.

Barack Obama's budget is one of abject cowardice; an abdication of a Presidency.

The opportunity now falls to John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and a Republican-controlled House of Representatives to make the painful but Republic-saving cuts in the federal budget. "Austerity" and "hardship" does not begin to convey the hardship they must visit upon their fellow Americans, but it is a sentence they must carry out because of the incompetence of generations of Democrats and Republicans before them.

This Congress has the opportunity to be remembered as the Congress That Saved America. It will not be easy. Gratitude will not come immediately, and perhaps not even of this generation. But if this nation survives, it will be because a group of citizen-legislators had the fortitude to do what what right for the country, and made the unpopular cuts that needed to be made in a time of hardship.

Courage and commitment to First Principles could be their proud legacy in an nation that last another 200 years. It remains to be seen whether they are up to the challenge. If they are not, we will soon become a fleeting memory.