Another day, another Midwestern Governor is in the process of attaining the beltway status of flavor du jour. He took on the unions. He railed against the pensions that he said were endangering the fiscal rectitude of his state. He claims his family was threatened as he stood for what was right. With a little help ( and a lot of money) from his "friends" he survived a recall election. He wrote a book. He will now sell that book on America's choice for fair and balanced news. And now, the fickle finger of fate is whispering in his ear.
**
After Watergate, a bipartisan bill was passed to give citizens the option of donating $3.00 to a system that would publicly fund elections. Recently, a bill sponsored by Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma sought to do away with this system because in his words, it was another wasteful unnecessary government expenditure. With 10 Democrats joining the
"just say no" gang, the bill was passed to do away with the feature of donating $3.00 and the notion of publicly funded elections probably forever. The vote was 235-190. 10 lawmakers had no opinion or chose to abstain. This bill, as with most other bills passed by this group with a 9% approval rating is "dead on arrival" in the Senate. The "pissing match" between our two parties continues and this is a perfect example of that.
It occurs to me that something is really wrong with the way we elect people-- and that includes the run up as well as the dreary process which yields us peers that earn $174,000.00 per year, will work 226 days this year, will have passed the fewest legislative initiatives in 60 years. And unlike the working stiffs who our aforementioned hero took on because their
previously negotiated pensions were deemed a drag on the local economy, our current legislators can participate in two different pension programs by which they are fully vested after 5 year participation. The new war being waged by Governors is to challenge and negate the benefits people were promised. They are now called the 47% or the "takers".
In addition, try this on for size. In 1974, 3% of "near retirement" legislators became lobbyists. Today, that number has swelled to 50% (Senators) and 43% (Congresspeeps). If you don't turn your political cloth inside out to lobby the very group that you once belonged to, you become a member of a "think tank", you write books, you get a job as a "pundit" on either the cable or traditional news networks. This might morph into a "talk radio" show and if you reach the
"right" audience (Good one, eh?), you can urge millions of devoted listeners to march to things that outrage you. And you can make a ton of money doing it. And to make that money, a large percentage of what you say to earn (?) may be too fuzzy to be fact checked, or in the opinion of some, it may be a gross prevarication. But even when you're fact checked, you can ignore it because in the politics game, what is the truth anyway? I think somebody wrote a book about the inconvenience of truths and you see what happened to him. Does this sound right to you
The subject line says
"hey, we're busy." We're all busy working- those of us who have jobs. We don't have a deal like our Senators so our future income depends on what we do every day to make a living. Most of our kids are grown, but economic conditions and the job market leave many of them in a non viable circumstance and many end up boomeranging back home to us, possibly needing some sort of subsidization. We all try to set aside what we used to call "rainy day funds" so God forbid if something terrible were to happen; job loss, catastrophic illness, we have a safety net.
Learning and staying up to date on politics and policy is boring (because laws are written by lawyers and we like our lawyers as much as we like having our teeth cleaned) {and Congress is heavily made up of lawyers} but
we're busy. We're bowling, cooking, watching our sports teams, drinking too much, trying to learn the violin, staying up to date on
Dancing with The Stars, sailing, saving money for a rainy day, tweeting (while driving) trying to get laid, coaching soccer, you get what I mean. And while we work, someone is whistling straight to the bank. And even though
we're busy, it's partially our fault because our
busy lives don't allow us the time to be as informed as we need to be. And we need to be informed. We cannot be low information people and get our truths from Huntley and Brinkley-- because they're dead. POTUS 44 said, "Don't Boo--VOTE!
Whatever your views, you are entitled to them. But we need to wake up and be as informed as time will allow us to be. Don't put your eggs in your elected official's basket. Those eggs don't have a chance of staying unbroken.
Special hums and whistles that segues with today's rant:
"Who'll make the promise that you don't have to keep? Don't look now, It ain't you or me."
"It ain't me, it ain't me. I ain't no Senator's Son."- Creedence Clearwater Revival.
John Fogerty, No one will ever take your table away.
**Scott Walker, you're table ain't ready.
Another saying comes to mind.
"If you do what you always did, you'll get what you always got."
See you tomorrow. Tell somebody you love them.
