Chancellor Woodson recently announced that the University would have to find ways to trim its services as budget cuts of up to 15 percent are on the horizon. This is just one of many indications of the dire financial dilemma our state and nation face as a whole. With the economy just beginning to pick up steam, a combination of high unemployment numbers and continuation of low tax rates is leaving lawmakers in a bind. Do they raise taxes at the cost of jeopardizing recovery and job creation or do they scale back services and hope the people affected don’t fall by the wayside?

Whatever happens, no one of any political persuasion will disagree that continuing to improve the economy should be priority number one right now. It is irresponsible and irrational for Republicans on the federal level to occupy the congressional floor with meaningless, inappropriate legislation.

Since the campaign for the 2010 mid-term elections, Republicans have promised to repeal President Obama’s health care bill, a bill the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated would help reduce the national deficit by over a trillion dollars in the coming decade. In January, Republicans made good on their promise, passing a bill on the House floor to repeal the Affordable Care Act. However, the Democratic majority squashed the bill when it went to a vote in the Senate. Surely, House Majority Leader John Boehner and the Republican leadership knew their measure was doomed for failure in the Senate. Nonetheless, they went about their symbolic gesture as continuing worries about the economic recovery and mounting national debt still remain largely unsettled.

With a failed healthcare repeal in the books, Republican leadership made its next move in proposing the No Taxpayer for Abortion Act, which would rule out federal financial assistance for many abortion cases, including those of statutory rape. Had this act gone through as proposed, conservative leadership would essentially be redefining the government’s definition of rape to exclude acts performed when the victim was unconscious or drugged. Fortunately, activist groups caught wind of this legislation and the bill’s language was revised to include all previously defined forms of rape. Once again, we witness another futile battle that not only failed to accomplish any real governance, but made its proposers out to be foolish, if not downright inept.

While the GOP has attained an impeccable reputation built on a foundation of symbolic gestures designed to win applause from a Judeo-Christian society, now is simply not the time for more of the same. With ballooning deficits and a fledgling recovery that is critical to the future of the nation, it’s time for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to sit down and brainstorm some real solutions. This means not getting held up on doomed measures to redefine abortion and obliterate the new health care law. Vigorous debate is a critical element to a true democracy, but only if the issue being debated is relevant to the nation’s most pressing needs.