You want to know what’s awesome? Congress. 64 senators just wrote a letter to the White House begging the president to take the lead in reducing the deficit. Yes! That president! The executive head of the United States who's involvement in passing legislation involves a) signing it, or b) asking Congress to pass it so he can sign it.
The Senate, on the other hand, used to be the body we regularly trusted with passing laws. And sixty four (64!) Senators have signed this, in spite of the fact that you could not normally get more than eight to agree on pizza toppings.
Let's put this into perspective. Enough Senators have signed this letter that they could have drafted deficit-reducing legislation, voted on it, and passed it. It is enough Senators to defeat an anti-deficit-reducing filibuster. It is nearly enough Senators that, by the time the deficit-reducing bill arrived on the president's desk, it would have been veto-proof. It is actually just two Senators short of the number needed to impeach the president if he irritated them. It's really quite a lot of Senators.
So an adult might wonder why a filibuster-proof, almost veto-proof supermajority of elected officials trusted with the authority to pass laws is spending their time writing fan mail rather than, you know, actually doing something about the deficit. But then we would not be treated to the infinitely redeeming spectacle of sixty-four grown members of congress begging for an intervention like a hopeless crack addict. This is what makes America great.
