What needs to happen instead

Yesterday, I wrote that the US won't have a new, inclusive, workable health care system by the end of the year because we haven't got the will for it and we don't understand and/or accept that we have to take profit out of that same system.

I stand by that.

But more than all that, what really needs to happen is that, as David Brooks said Sunday morning on "This Week with George Stephanopoulis" on ABC, "The house is burning down around us."

It's all great that President Obama is tackling our other big problems, sure. Tackle health care. Tackle relations with the Soviet Union, the Taliban, Iran and the rest of the world.

But not right now.

Above all, get a handle on our economy. It is THE big problem, above all others, that needs to be addressed.

Fortunately, everyone agrees on this.

But that's not, it seems, what is coming out of the White House, to date.

I think this is going to change. The President and his staff and administration are all bright people.

I'm not just being trusting here. I'm not simply being naive.

The people running the country are opportunists and the kind of people that jumps on the biggest problems that would run them down otherwise.

But this needs to happen sooner--like this week--rather than later. The need to get on top of and pay attention to the economy, right now, above all other and as soon as possible.