The question was; “Are you better off now than when Obama took office?” 44% said no while 34% said yes. This seems like a reasonable total considering the current situation but it’s the wrong question or at least it’s only the question that should lead to the important question which is who put us in this unfortunate situation, Obama or the Republican administration that preceded him.
Actually we should be asking if the problem isn’t the current Republicans. They were around when the problem was created, participated in the making of the problem and now are more interested in frustrating Obama’s efforts to solve the problem than in helping to solve it themselves.
Everyone is saying that this country is in trouble and that this country has a problem. The only problem this country has is the government and that problem is two fold. The first part of the problem is endemic to the entire system and that is, that our elected officials on both sides of the aisle and in both houses spend most of their time electioneering instead of governing. This is partially understandable if completely unacceptable in the House where the terms are for only two years. It is absolutely unacceptable in the Senate where the terms are for six years.
For those of you who spend your day adoring Colonial America and thinking that we should still be running the country the way we did in those quasi-Neanderthal times, I would like to point out that in those days, all governing bodies, House, Senate and Presidency were considered to be temporary and manned by volunteers who considered their positions a public service, not a lifetime annuity. Contemporary congressmen like Thurmond and Bird who had runs of 47 & 40 years completely turned that concept around. They never had to hold a real job in their lives and so had no real living experience with which to judge the problems of their constituencies. These were men who spent more time institutionalizing their positions then doing their jobs, more often than not to the detriment of their constituents needs.
Right now we have 535 professional politicians continually running for office and no one governing the country. When I touched on this subject almost a year ago I suggested that serious term limits be applied to all parts of government. The immediate objection was that by dong so we would lose all the advantages of experience and be continually dealing with a large group of newly elected politicians who didn’t know how to get things done. This POV has been given credence by the influx of Tea Party candidates who bring with them an alarming naivety and far too much ignorance to be a viable alternative. My new theory is that all elected officials, congress and president should be elected for six years with no term limits but with the proviso that they cannot serve consecutive terms. So you could be elected, serve six years but then have to sit out at least two years, maybe even get a real job before they could run again. The theory behind this is that there would always be a down time for these politicians to run for office when they weren’t busy governing. Additionally, it would give voters a period of time to look back and reflect on the accomplishments of those for whom they are being asked to vote. Did he do a good job in his six years and how has his replacement been doing comparatively since then? I know, this is not a perfect solution, but something has to be done to force the people who are being paid to govern this nation to actually spend some time doing that.
The second part of the twofold problem with our current government stems from the first part and is the result of the problems caused by it. Right now no one is governing this country at all. The Democrats, terrified that they will be humiliated as they were at the last election are too paralyzed to do anything lest a fickle public take umbrage with their position and vote Republican. This is, of course, cowardly and pathetic.
On the other hand the Republicans, locked into an impossible minority philosophy, and understanding that their opponent is selling a far more appealing program have stopped governing entirely and in true thuggish style have gone to the mattresses. Mitch McConnell, named as one of the 26 most corrupt members of Congress, and his coterie of liars and punks know they are on a sinking ship and like many desperate cowardly men have decided to take everyone down with them. They have the slimmest hope for survival and that is to somehow make the voting public believe that the financial collapse that will inevitably be the result of their actions, is somehow Obama’s fault. My position is not conjecture. McConnell stated it flat out when he said that his main aim in the coming years was to force Obama out of office. Too bad his main aim isn’t to find jobs for the millions of unemployed, too bad it isn’t to find logical ways to attack the deficit, four trillion dollars of which was built during the Bush administration when he and his Republican cronies seems to have no trouble (7 times) voting to increase the debt limit.
McConnell and his gang of thugs have nothing to offer on the problems of healthcare, unemployment, sagging infrastructure, failed education or financial regulation so they just ignore them. They try to force the administration into a position where the country defaults, with their only hope, that they can sell to the same people who in 2004, bought gay marriage and abortion as serious problems, that Obama is responsible for the collapse of a Bush ruptured, McConnell stomped on economy.
If I’m wrong, how is it that when the negotiations led by Joe Biden were approaching a point where some progress could be made, McConnell, in a state of hysteria that there might actually be an agreement bordering on fairness, stamped his little feet and stormed out; the final protest of a petulant child.
When Obama was elected I thought he was a Chicago politician, a tough guy, who knows how to face tough problems. So far we haven’t seen that guy. It is time we did. Obama and Biden, who is a tough guy, have to stick it in McConnell’s face. They have to stand up on their hind legs and tell McConnell, Bachmann and the Teabaggers that there will be no surrender, that there will be tax increases, that there will be military cuts, that there will not be any more cuts in essential services. If the Republicans will not accept that, if the Republicans force the government to default and the American people to suffer more than they already have from the misguided policies that benefit only their rich friends, then they will have to face the American people at the polls in November of 2012.