January 25, 2011 11:09AM # Our Brave Leaders By [Chris Edwards](https://www.cato.org/people/chris-edwards) --- SHARE The [*Washington Post* reports: ](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/24/AR2011012403472.html?hpid=topnews)“Obama has decided not to endorse his deficit commission’s recommendation to raise the retirement age, and otherwise reduce Social Security benefits, in Tuesday’s State of the Union address.” When I read this, I thought of a song from *Monty Python and the Holy Grail*: > Brave Sir Robin ran away > Bravely ran away, away > When danger reared its ugly head > He bravely turned his tail and fled > Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about > And gallantly he chickened out > Bravely taking to his feet > He beat a very brave retreat > Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin. In the movie, Sir Robin and the other knights are galloping along on horseback, except when you look closely you see that their aides are banging coconuts together only simulating the sounds of brave mounted knights. Isn’t that what’s going on in Washington? A giant fiscal disaster looms over the nation, and our leaders are only simulating leadership. Republican leaders can’t name a single program that they would cut, and President Obama runs away from a reform to the nation’s most costly program that should be a no-brainer. Rather than chasing the Holy Grail of “investment” spending, the president needs to sit down with his congressional knights at a roundtable and get the kingdom’s finances under control with major spending cuts. ##### Related Tags [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).