Here are some of the real questions American’s want answered. In no particular order:
How does congress justify requiring its constituents to participate in a healthcare program from which they exempt themselves?
Why does congress allow themselves better retirement benefits than average citizens and why do they think citizens should pay for theirs?
How do lawmakers think it is ok to require proof of insurance, but think proof of citizenship is a burden?
Why does government think it is ok to take money from taxpayers and give it to private companies of their choosing?
Why does Congress delegate its authority to the EPA and other agencies without congressional oversight?
Why is the executive branch allowed to circumvent the constitution without congressional or judicial challenges? ie: Czars who are not elected and regulations imposed by unelected officials.
Why do we need legislation barring insider trading by government officials? Did they think they were exempt from the insider trading laws the rest of us are subject to? What else are they exempt from?
Why is Social Security in financial trouble. Is it because we did not collect enough from those in the program or that we pay out to those who did not contribute. Why and how is this fixed fairly?
How is the National Debt going to be repaid. Really, this needs a real answer to which none have surfaced?
Why does government not perform a cost/benefit analysis on legislation and regulation before enactment?
Why is it ok to build roads and bridges that will require chemicals and salt to be applied forever, but a temporary earth disturbance such as a coal mine or oil well is unacceptable.
Who changed the meaning of the word “swamp” to “wetland” and how can government control privately owned swamp land without compensating the owner.
Why do we need any more laws? Don’t we have enough.
What steps must be taking to insure we have affordable energy?
Why are there so many lawsuits and should there be changes in legislation to curtail them?
It appears to me that government does not have answers to any of these questions. It seems that they only know how to increase the power and influence of government while diminishing the power of the people. Before it is too late, the people better start exercising its power at the ballot box. Anyone not having answers to these questions and the willingness to address them does not deserve our vote.
Our Justice Department is a national disgrace. It has been a year since Fast and Furious surfaced and we still don't know who authorized it. Subpoenas for documents have been mostly ignored and the I.G. has yet to question any of the participants. Why are we putting up with this?
ReplyDeleteGood comments. I thought this was the transparent administration.
ReplyDeleteGood decision making is based on the risk/reward model. This dynamic is directly related to most of your questions. Think of the US economy as a business for a moment, I know its difficult. You find that decision making is poor at best, yielding the current state of our union. The board of directors (legislature), CEO (President) and the auditors (Justice) are not the largest shareholders with a vested interest. They are not even elected by the largest shareholders (voters) considering total ballots cast. So how do these poor decision makers remain at the helm? It is by distorting and complicating matters so that the smallest shareholders incur a huge opportunity cost to sort things out. We could debate the utility of voting til the cows come home, but it seems more simple to me. It is better to view the risk/reward model as the cost/benefit model, regardless of duplicity. Three basic groups of eligible voters make up the majority of shareholders in this country. One group votes with cost as their primary principle, the second group votes with benefit as their guiding force. The third group, ignorantly or not, views the whole process as too costly for their participation.
ReplyDeleteBravo!
ReplyDeleteOne of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
ReplyDeleteThank you Plato: sometime around 470 BC
Great !!! Showing my husband and kids! Love it.
ReplyDeleteThe root of the problem is, perhaps, the emergence of the “professional political class” during the last 50 years. The “Founders” (framers of the Constitution) never envisioned a “governing elite”. They designed the House of Representatives to specifically be “ordinary citizens” who would serve brief terms of public service and return to private life. As we all know, Representatives now spend more time at fundraisers than they do considering policy (legislation) – that’s a big problem not anticipated by our Founders; it is at the root of many problems that your questions pose.
ReplyDeleteTerm limits and a statute preventing Congress from exempting themselves from the laws they pass would perhaps reverse the current trend that has been advancing for a century. Unless the populous forces those measures by Constitutional Amendment though, I believe its prospects bleak.
Our current environment; internet, blogs, etc. provide the best resources the public has had to reign in the excesses of the “professional political class”. It just remains to be seen if we can use that tool to accomplish the return of our government to its rightful place: We the People ….