How loud do Americans have to scream before their government hears them? The nation’s debt keeps spinning out of control, yet all we hear on the whispering winds is that the value-added tax is on its way. What the hell? I’ve checked my bank account, I’m tapped. At the bottom of my purse might be an old lint-covered Life Saver and a state quarter, but I need that for my collection. The quarter, not the Life Saver.
I love the federal government’s ability to give with the right hand while the left hand slips in your pocket. “Here’s your cheaper health care—Oh, and by the way, I’m going to need some more money from you.” I don’t know about you, but for me, it was cheaper before they made it cheaper.
Here are some questions for which I’d like some answers:
Why wasn’t the federal government concerned with getting waste and fraud out of Medicaid and Medicare before last year?
Where are the behind-closed-door meetings on how to cut spending?
Where are the political leaders who are willing to cut spending within their very own offices?
Have any of them made statements saying they would take no business trips this year or attend “seminars” in tropical places?
Why the hell do they need to go to seminars anyway?
Where’s the summit on discontinuing redundancy in programs?
Where is the presidential arm-twisting on controlling budgets?
To answer this last one: there aren’t any because they don’t care to cut spending, they know they can always raise our taxes—man they love us. So there is no talk of belt tightening on capitol hill, that’s strictly American kitchen table chat.
Their chats consist of “how do we get/keep more of “our kind” in office so we can maintain/regain power.” They are interested in power and money, not necessarily in that order. Nowhere in their equation will you see the phrase “concerns of the American people.” Get it through your head America you are merely a wallet from which the Treasury sees a never-ending supply of dollars. You are a means to an end. You are a nuisance during non-election years and a necessary evil to be coddled during an election year. So that’s something to look forward to this year.
Rep. Bart Stupak’s (D-Mich.) announcement that he is not going to run for another congressional term should be a clarion call to the American electorate that Congress has not for a long time bothered itself with the concerns of the people they pretend to represent. There was a time when Congress protected you from an over-reaching president. Their job was to maintain a friendly hostility between them and the office of the president. That’s how we prevented things like out of control spending and quid pro quos from happening in the first place. Now Congress is just the lap dog of the executive branch. Where once sat great danes of protection now sit high-strung, eager-to-please cavachons with sad, weepy eyes.
The media has been complicit in this treatment. I would liken them to the untrained puppy—peeing all over the place at the sight of their master.
To answer the question I posed above: It doesn’t matter how loud nor how long we scream, our representatives, Republican, Democrat and Independent, have turned deaf ears toward us. Our lips are moving, our signs are waiving but no one cares to pay attention. It’s us vs. them now. They would have us believe this is a typical class war, the haves against the have nots. The Tea Partiers against everyone else.
I agree there is a class war brewing, however it’s not the one the politicos are trying to orchestrate. This class war is citizen vs. government. This war will involve more than your tea beverage. I believe the coffee and juice lovers will be joining in this war before the last autumn leaf hit’s the forest floor. It will be every American vs. the Out of Control, Arrogant Federal Government and their urine-stained rugs.
It’s time to shut down the money grabbers in Washington who do nothing but dream up programs to remove us from our hard earned wages.
I think enough of us have already taken as much as we are going to take and given as much as we can afford to give. They’ll not get my last quarter nor my lint Life Saver.
Cindy Stickline-Rose is a former law clerk and office manager, as well as a mother of five children, one of which suffers from cerebral palsy.