Belgium is leading by example. Belgium!
In Belgium, it is business as usual. Trains run, the prime minister greets visiting foreign leaders, social security benefits are paid and the country’s famed bureaucracy functions unabated.
If everything seems normal, it is – bar one glitch. Belgium has no new government, 101 days after a general election.
Since it won independence in 1830, the country has had trouble keeping itself together. Now, concerns are growing that the Franco-phone Walloons of the south and the Dutch-speaking Flemings in the north will finally split. While Belgium bears few visible scars of political impasse, disagreements over state reform have left negotiators unable to form a centre-right governing coalition since the election on June 10.
No new legislation. No new regulation. No new nothing coming out of their legislative houses.
Please, I can only hope for so much here in the US.
Eeek! Unterminated tag!
However, for our government, that simply would not work – case in point, the military budget. That is “renegotiated” every year, once a year, and if it is not signed on time… well, I guess the military gets to hitch up the old belt for a few weeks.
Our government is not only pervasive and controlling, it is unfortunately self-perpetuating.
What’s a “Belgium”?