A Brief Encounter At The Airport

It was while perusing the comments to this piece in the WSJ about our reckless Congress that I came across a comment that struck right to the heart of the matter.

This evening about six o'clock, standing in the security line in the Atlanta airport, the man in front of me, looking deflated and motioning toward the hassled travelers in line ahead of us, turned to me: "Pretty soon this is what our health care and banks are going to look like."

He didn't know me from Adam. But this middle-aged American needed to vent. He found a sympathetic ear.

Turned out he was an investor for major institutions and deals often with Pacific Rim investors and governments. "So what do your Asian friends think about what we're doing here in the U.S.?" I asked.

"THEY THINK WE'RE CRAZY," he boomed. "They know this is undo-able. The taxes, the debt, the government intrusion. . . . ."

His voice trailed off. He looked down. He shook his head, and his eyes kind glazed over in a daze of despondence and disbelief. We gathered our shoes and laptops and marched in different directions to board our planes.

The only consolation: this appears such a gross overreach, the whole program could crash.

We should be so lucky.