The Buck Stops Here

Pres. Truman had a sign on his desk in the Oval Office: The Buck Stops Here.  Pres. Obama should have that sign too. It doesn't matter when he was informed about the attack on our embassy in Benghazi, Libya or when he was told that it was apparently a planned attack, not just a riot. He knew that the budget for embassy security had been cut and he signed that budget. The buck stops there.

On the other hand the buck also went through the hands of Rep. Ryan and the House of Representatives. They engineered the cut in money for embassy security. They squeezed and redirected the bucks. And Pres. Obama had to consider many other items in the budget when he signed it. He is responsible for all those items as well, for better or worse. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is responsible for how the funds were allocated. And her operatives in the field were responsible for advising her on where the security funds were most needed. And the attackers in Benghazi were responsible for disguising their efforts so that we would not know about their attack in advance.

The buck makes many stops along the way. Life is like that. And so is our economy. Bucks are supposed to move and make many brief stops along the way. That is what they do when our economy is booming. When the bucks pile up in banks in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands they are not doing their job. They can't be used to fund an expansion of the military or to cut the national deficit or to repair our crumbling roads. So Gov. Romney and his 1% buddies need to put a sign on their foreign accounts: The Bucks Stop Here.