Suppose you wanted a new television for your living room and you had spent a few months saving the money to buy it. But then suppose that before you went to purchase the television, a pipe burst in your home, causing hundreds of dollars worth of damage that had to be repaired promptly.
If you are a responsible homeowner, of course, you would obviously repair the flood damage before buying the television, which is a luxury.
But that simple principle of putting needs before wants seems to be lost on many of our lawmakers in Congress.
Earlier this week, Democrats blocked a bill in the House of Representatives that would have provided relief to many victims of recent hurricanes and other disasters.
Why did Democrats - with help from a handful of Republicans - decide to block the bill? Because in order to help pay for the disaster relief, Republicans had rightly insisted on cutting $1.5 billion out of a federal loan program that helps car companies build more fuel-efficient vehicles. Without that cut, the full bill for disaster relief would be added to our massive $14.7 trillion national debt.
Do you think it was appropriate for Democrats to block emergency disaster relief simply for the sake of protecting subsidies to car makers?
And what business does Washington have subsidizing the manufacturing of cars in the first place? If anything, Republicans should have gone even further, by insisting on zeroing out those subsidies.
At this writing, members of the House are trying to pass a new bill to provide disaster relief.
But it is discouraging how difficult it is to reduce subsidies of any type once they are in place.