Don’t Let Perfect Be The Enemy Of Good?

This phrase has passed the lips of numerous Republican members of Congress recently in discussing the need to pass President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” What they mean by this is to disregard the mountains of pork that are larded onto a lot of good items, in the interest of getting the bill passed and on to the president for his signature. Unfortunately, this saying may be less appropriate for government budgets than it is in our personal lives. Let’s see.

We’ve probably observed someone in our lives, if not ourselves, who has a massive perfectionist streak. This can be destructive to one’s hopes and dreams if the perfectionist allows their lives to be governed with that obsession. I knew someone who had the talent to be a professional bowler – he was that good. But he expected to roll a perfect 300 score every game, and even the best pros don’t do this very often. As a result, this young man gave up instead of allowing for some small margin of error in his game scores.

What is it within us that makes us strive for the unattainable? If we look at Matthew 5:48 (New International Version), “Be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect,” Jesus seems to be giving us an impossible command. Yet we know if we have read through the New Testament in particular, that Jesus is a perfect reflection of the Father’s mercy and grace. Those things (mercy and grace) are evidence that He who created us knows that we are not perfect – that is not the issue. Rather, the issue is how much we need to rely on God to strive for and approach the ultimate goal of perfection. If we try to get there through our own strength, it will never happen.

In returning to the current budget situation, a fair question might be: What constitutes “good” in the opinion of those who want us settling for “good” instead of “perfect?” To answer that, I would start by pointing to the analysis of Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, who is one of the few real “deficit hawks” in Congress these days. Sen. Johnson rightly points to the pre-COVID budgets, which were up to $2 trillion less than the current one, and asks why we can’t return to that level (as a starting point, subject to both upward and downward adjustments) now that the pandemic is behind us. As he correctly notes, one of the many negative aspects of Biden’s presidency was the exponential increases in federal spending, ostensibly to deal with the pandemic but, in reality, a smokescreen that hid the massive pork that Congress critters of both parties love to shower on their constituents. Voters may finally be acknowledging, $36 trillion later, that it’s their tax dollars that are being “brought home,” and that they broke more of a sweat creating those tax dollars than their Congress critter did by simply voting “yea” to the latest massive spending bill.

Those who are critical of the current bill (and I count myself in that group) will note that the work of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seems to have gone by the wayside. And what little of their efforts are included are being demagogued all too predictably by the Dems. Unfortunately, the way proposed cuts are being handled in the court of public opinion does not help the situation. Let’s take Medicaid, always a thorny and provocative issue, as an example. The cuts being discussed have to do with cutting benefits for illegal aliens who should not have been eligible in the first place. However, to hear the Dems’ caterwauling, you’d think that everyone’s Medicaid is going under the knife. Unless the Republicans effectively counter misinformation such as this, it will be difficult to overcome these specious arguments. 

In my opinion, formed from observations over many years, the Dems play the same game with the budget as they do with potential government shutdowns – to present the impact of cuts or shutdowns in the starkest possible terms so that they will ultimately get their way. The bureaucrats running the various federal agencies (sub-Cabinet level) are only too glad to present dark warnings about what any cuts to their budgets will do to impact public safety and necessary services. Never mind that the cuts are only meant for items that are easily identified as superfluous or otherwise not critical. Identifying such items was the central mission of DOGE (put in the past tense because with Elon Musk’s departure, DOGE now seems to be a toothless tiger). Add to this Rush Limbaugh’s valid claim that in the world of the Washington beltway, a “cut” may be defined, especially by Democrats, as simply a decrease in the proposed amount of increase, not a decrease to the current amount.

Now that the “big, beautiful bill” has passed from the House of Representatives to the Senate, it will be interesting to see what that august body’s contribution will be to the sausage-making that produces a federal budget. Here’s hoping that Senator Johnson’s voice, along with others such as Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), will have a major influence on the proceedings.