What the Congress does....

My metaphor for the day:

Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them. (from Anacharsis, the first outsider to be made an Athenian citizen, and who was included among the legendary Seven Wise Men of Greece by ancient historians.)


Ah, our wonderful Congress, which makes a political football out of every issue that comes up.  Even though they finally approved the raising of the debt limit, only done 70 times in the last 50 years, they created a crisis out of it with repercussions still to follow.

They fail to appropriate $25 million to the FAA and the result will be a loss of revenue of $ 1 billion by the time they get around to approving it when they come back to work in September.  Why don't you ask your senator and representative about that when they are home in the district the next few weeks?  It would be interesting to hear what they have to say....

Yes, they don't want to raise taxes at all (the debt "compromise" was approved by both parties!) yet they can cut services to the poor and to the middle class.  Of course they can easily break through the lack of services - do they have to worry about health care, education for their children, or retirement, just to name a few areas of cuts.  Why no - they have a cadillac health plan that we provide, they can afford to put their children in private schools (and forget about the needs of public schools in this country), and have a generous retirement program once they serve a few terms.

Now they are calling the rich "job providers" - and we can't take any money out of their pockets.  Of course a big problem with the economic recovery is that the fat cats are not creating jobs.  They are just sitting on it.

Keep informed my friends, and take care.

Brinkmanship

Our government leaders are behaving poorly, to say the least.  We are an amusement to those around the world because our two political parties will not compromise and provide an answer to allow the raising of our debt limit.  But what is worse is the disservice our elected representatives are doing to us, their constituents.  They are putting the federal government and all of the state governments in a position to default on its obligations.  In the case of the federal government, the obligations are those which our elected officials created themselves.  Bond rating agencies are considering lowering the rating of our bonds even if there is no default!  It is not good practice to push these serious matters to the brink of disaster for the sake of politics.

It has been documented in The Economist and most news media in this country that the two opposing partisan plans at one time stood two percentage points apart, but still no agreement.  The Democratic plan called for 83% of the reduction to be in budget cuts with 17% in tax increases and the Republicans were at 85% and 15%,  respectively.  The Republicans seem to want to solve the issue for six months or so, and then be able to bring it up as a campaign issue next year.  What is more important in their minds - a stable government and economy or getting re-elected?

Where are our true statesmen in this country?  The "Gang of Six" tried, but was shot down by their own parties.  It is hard to have any respect for the political hacks who are not working for a reasonable compromise, but just like to stand in front of cameras and microphones and pontificate.  There are many other difficult issues that must be addressed, such as jobs, education, health and welfare of the people.  Yet our politicians are letting them fester while they grandstand.

It is time for a compromise - time to stand up to the far right and far left of the parties.  It is hard because there is no pork in this settlement, like there usually is.  "I will vote for it if you appropriate a little money for my district for some roads or bridges...."

So, ladies and gentlemen, start doing your jobs like the rest of us.  Maybe you'll take a little heat, but you all retire from elected office as millionaires if you weren't one going in - you can stand a little heat can't you?

For everyone else, except our elected officials, take care.  Keep a close eye on how responsible your representatives are.  Many some of them should be turned out next year for not being able to look after our interests.