Leadership from Behind...Again.

As a soon-to-be-furloughed civilian employee of the United States Air Force, currently hunkered down in the icebox that is Northern Virginia, I've got some thoughts on the pathetic state of leadership—or complete lack thereof—among our elected officials.

To be crystal clear: I'm not diving into the specifics of the funding fights or the policy battles right now. Those matter, and I have strong views about them, but this isn't about that. This is about the bigger, more fundamental failure.

Do your damn job.

Congress hasn't passed all its required regular appropriations bills on time—by the start of the fiscal year—since the late 1990s. (The last full, on-time completion was fiscal year 1997, under Clinton. Before that? Sporadic at best—only a handful of times since the modern system began in the 1970s.) The Constitution couldn't be clearer: Article I hands Congress the "power of the purse"—raising revenue, borrowing, controlling spending. Sections 7, 8, and 9 make the stipulation plain. This is your core duty. Not optional. Not partisan. Just do it. I don't care about your party, your ideology, or your talking points. Your charter is to manage the budget. Full stop.

If I were somehow put in charge (yes, I know—hell would freeze over twice, and I'd be canceled, doxxed, and dragged on every platform by sunrise), here's how I'd handle it as a leader:

Call every single member of the House and Senate into a mandatory, simultaneous joint session. Seal the doors. Confiscate the phones. Order the pizzas. Then lay it out straight: "We are not leaving this building until we pass a budget. No one gets what they fully want. No one walks out happy. If it takes a bare-knuckle fist fight on the floor to get there, so be it. But we leave with a deal.”

Extreme? Maybe. But chronic failure demands extreme accountability.

And finally, the one that really sticks in my craw: "You don't get paid, then we don't get paid." Except that's a lie. When the government shuts down because of them, many get furloughed—no pay, no work, uncertainty. Personally I am at a place to absorb it, many are not. Essential folks (military included) often work without immediate pay. But Congress? They keep getting their checks, protected by constitutional provisions and permanent appropriations. Their staff might get hit, but the members themselves? Untouched. "Some for me and not for thee."

I can't even process that kind of disconnect.

My view of leadership was forged over 22 years in U.S. Special Forces:

• If it's good, your people get the credit—and they go first.
• If it's bad, it's your fault—and you go first.

Simple. Brutal. Not easy. That's leadership from the front. The only kind that counts. (Remember when a former feckless president talked about "leading from behind"? That's not leadership; that's an oxymoron.)

Right now, there's more real leadership in a single sergeant in a ranger battalion than in the entire Congress combined. They should be ashamed. We, the American people, deserve better.

Stay warm out there. Here's hoping the tundra thaws before the next CR circus.