They Are Not Listening to "We the People..."

I keep talking, along with many others, and no one is listening. Seriously, the editorial pages of all the major newspapers are touting the same message. Essentially, in many ways, those op-editors along with zillions of citizens are pushing, cajoling, shaming, and threatening our Senators and Representatives in Congress to work together and get something done. The product of the current Congress is shameful in its dearth. The old joke about the less Congress does, the better off we are, is not funny anymore.

We are fast approaching the so-called “fiscal cliff” which means that unless Congress does something to fund the government beyond the short term, cut the budget and the debt, plan for the future, and solve our many other problems, the outlook is bleak.

We have been bleak before I suppose, but this picture is one of the most portentous we have ever known. After dithering last year, the USA took a hit in our credit rating costing untold billions of dollars. I doubt we can take another such hit, yet no one seems to want to work together. The constant drivel pouring from the mouths of both sides would be comical if not so deadly serious.

John Boehner and Harry Reid are some of the worst, and they are the leaders, for God’s sake. They are no longer doing the people’s business. We know that there are many different views among the electorate. We depend on these “representatives” of the people to take in all the information and then put it all together with some obvious compromise. No one gets all they want except in dictatorships and other tyrannical governments. Truly, half a loaf is better than none, especially since no one is like to bring home the whole loaf.

When reading the US Constitution on archives.gov, I noticed a line worth quoting in the commentary. Speaking of creating the Constitution, a colossal task, it was finally crafted with many competing constituencies. “The work of many minds, the Constitution stands as a model of cooperative statesmanship and the art of compromise.” Oh, for the good old days.

Striving For Mediocrity?

I once wrote about the “Rise and Fall of the American Empire,” at the time more tongue-in-cheek, but as we slog through campaigns and elections I begin to worry that something in the American Enterprise isn’t working.

Some like to say that America is “exceptional” and while that may be true, it is certainly not demonstrated in our seats of government. Despite the pleas from the citizens, the pundits, and even the media, politicians seem willing to ignore the pitfalls of doing nothing.

Doing nothing with the budget, doing nothing about the deficit, doing nothing about serious healthcare issues, and doing nothing about the unsustainable growth of Social Security and Medicare, all seems to be OK. Just push it down the road. Instead the Congress and the President try to one-up each other with cute sayings and epithets that add nothing to the solution. The old adage, “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem” is even more true today.

I have written to my senators and representatives begging them to propose some compromise, to be true statesman, and not just partisans who tear asunder our American fabric. Discussion is good, lively discussion is better, but in the end it probably takes a compromise, a bargain, a deal. We used to denounce such back room dealings where senators would make an agreement to vote for one of the opposition’s pet projects in return for support for another on the other side. Oh, I long for those days of “sausage making.” At least there was a product, a movement forward. Today we are stuck; no, we are in reverse, and if something doesn’t happen soon, it will be irreversible.