Common Sense TodayA Case for a Change of LeadershipWhat is Good Government?As I was reflecting on the current state American affairs, I began to find myself saddened. There is the current war in Iraq, with rising death tolls and huge economic costs, and the new certainty that the best we can hope for is another Iran and new groups of freshly trained terrorists, spreading the globe, for our efforts. There is also vast economic uncertainty among working Americans facing ever rising costs in energy, health care, education, food and clothing while salaries at best are stagnating and at worst are falling. To make things worse, the opportunities to correct the current course continued to shrink; there is the continuing outsourcing of American production, trade policies which more and more put Americans on an uneven playing field and fiscal policies which continue to squeeze the middle class to the point of breaking. To make matters worse we have a federal government that has totally ignored our calls for positive change to reverse the current course. In fact, beyond ignoring our calls for change they have actually stepped up their efforts to continue ever faster down the same course. But, I truly became saddened when I realized this group has been at for
Ten Years. And with each passing year, they have become more unresponsive, more corrupt, and more arrogant with a complete consolidation of power.
So how is a bad trend allowed to continue for so long in a nation that has a government
“of the people, by the people, and for the people?” It is my belief that we as Americans have become overwhelmed in our lives. Between the current economy requiring two incomes per household and each of those careers requiring more and more hours to succeed, coupled with trying to stay connected to our families, friends, and civic and charitable organizations, we haven’t had the time to reflect on what is good government and realize how far we have gone away from it.
When people come together to form a society, they have made a decision that they can improve their lives more through cooperation with others than they can on their own. If their expectations were that their lives would be worse working together than on their own, there would be no incentive for them to come together. Governments are then created by the societies to help ensure the success of its citizens. Our founders explained this clearly in the opening lines of our Constitution. It was “
We the People” who charted our government and gave it its mission. The mission included providing for our physical security, promoting policies which would ensure our general prosperity, and to secure the opportunities that only living in free society can bring. When we exam the current performance of our federal government and weigh that current performance against the missions it was charted to accomplish, the candid facts show that the only conclusion we can come to is that our current leadership is woefully lacking.
Facts Regarding the Current Political LeadershipIn providing for our physical security the government has clearly failed both at home and abroad. The facts concerning the conflict in Iraq, the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, and the total apathy involved in securing our nuclear, chemical, and food and water supplies bear this out.
In Iraq, the current administration began down a dark course from the beginning and has never attempted to correct it despite the pleas from the public. We may never know what actually motivated the administration to choose this war (the justification has changed frequently with time) but, we do know they were committed to it and would know no limits to the levels they would stoop to ensure it would occur. When presented with evidence that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction they not only chose to ignore the evidence, but instead embarked on personal smear campaigns against the citizens who presented it. The greatest act they performed was the revealing of a covert agent’s identity. In this act (one that many have described as simply treasonous) did they not only jeopardize the projects that she had worked on but also the lives of those who had cooperated with her. Additionally, despite the fact that intelligence has never provided any report linking Iraq with the 9/11 attacks they continued to tie the two together both explicitly and rhetorically to garner support. I know of no greater responsibility the executive branch of government could have than to only commit our sons and daughters to armed conflict as a last resort, and here they have failed miserably. And what has the losses of our sons or daughters bought us? Iraq has become the new terrorists’ training ground. What was destroyed in Afghanistan has been rebuilt in Iraq. Beyond that, now that the new generation of terrorists have been trained and tested they are now exporting them to all corners of the globe. What’s more, it has now become apparent, that if Iraq is able to escape civil war (which by no means is a certainty) that their new government will be closely aligned with Iran, providing support and supplying yet another barrier from preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Beyond the human toll the war has also embarked us on a path of unchecked federal deficits. And while painstakingly low at delivering body armor and armored vehicles to our troops, the political leadership has been quick to award no-bid contracts to their cronies. These companies, while providing dismal reconstruction, have managed to rapidly spend our tax dollars with little or no accountability with large sums of money totally unaccounted for even today. These policies have resulted in an astronomical debt and interest whose burden we will pass on to our children.
In plain and simple terms the war has made us much less secure. Less secure from terrorism, less secure from a nuclear Iran and less financially secure from runaway debt. But, we as citizens have not been totally silent in our pain. We have repeatedly petitioned the administration and congress to give us an exit strategy. Their responses have only been to ignore our calls, to condescendingly belittle our understanding of the plain facts, or to pander us with terms like “total victory” while refusing to define what total victory meant.
Our representatives in Washington have not limited their efforts to lower our security to overseas either. Here at home in an effort to remove our ability to respond national disasters they gutted the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They drastically cut funding to this domestic security agency driving it to the point of impotence. They then enacted policies which drove seasoned emergency professionals out of their posts. Further adding to this travesty they replaced the competent professionals with their own political cronies totally crippling the nation’s ability to respond to large scale disasters. The results of this government’s actions became readily visible as watched our fellow citizens die on the streets of New Orleans. And when we demanded action to save these citizens what did we get? More foot dragging, excuses and political spin. Most appalling when we demanded an investigation into the failure, they loaded the investigating body with loyal partisans and even went so far as to hire the crony responsible for much of the failure to investigate himself.
On preparing our nation’s vulnerable industries for terrorists attacks again the current leadership has failed. When we asked for security for our food and water supplies they have totally ignored us. When finally pressed again and again to address this weakness their only answer has been “It’s too hard”. This from a group that constantly remind us of the importance of hard work. Apparently, for us and not for them. They have also failed to protect our railways and transit systems despite the fact intelligence continually show these to be prime targets. Why is our leadership ignorant of the lessons of London? In the chemical industry the leadership had even authored legislation dictating terrorist prevention measures. It was almost scheduled for a vote. Then following a large influx of campaign contributions from the chemical giants the legislation was tabled. Whose security are these politicians out to protect, ours or their campaign coffers? I think the answer is clear.
At home as abroad our current government leadership has failed to provide for our security. In the area of promoting policies which add to our general welfare and enable us to secure the blessings of liberty, our current governmental leadership has again proven themselves unworthy of our continued support. In every case they have acted against increasing our opportunities and have instead opted to increase the fortunes of the select elite at our expense.
While the leadership and its propagandists tell us about continued economic growth, what have we the citizens seen? The cost of energy is rising at historical levels and our demands for actions to help curb this tide ignored. Instead of delivering a sound energy policy, what have they done? Enacted legislation which
takes tax dollars out of our pockets and gives it the oil conglomerates to encourage them to drill for oil. To drill for oil! As if record high profits were not encouragement enough we now pay the oil companies at the pump and through our tax dollars. The leadership’s policies have not only hurt us with respect to energy it has hurt us across the board. Over the past several years we have seen consumer prices increase by more than 10% while the median family income has fallen by 3%. The leadership’s failure to address skyrocketing costs of health care is also cutting us deeply with more working Americans losing their coverage everyday while our leaders craft legislation favorable to their pharmaceutical and HMO donors. This continued assault on middle America to benefit corporate donors must stop. And its not as if we the people are not contributing to corporate success. Our productivity is higher than it has ever been yet our leadership continues to favor policies which do not allow us to fully share in the prosperity. Even going beyond not helping they are actually trying to drive us further into an abyss. They have embarked upon a tax program which while giving huge benefits to the wealthiest 1% of America, has driven our deficits to record levels. Only now are they endeavoring to find a solution to our debt and where is the first place they look?
THE REDUCTION OR ELIMINATION OF THE HOME INTEREST DEDUCTION. The single fiscal policy which has enabled working class Americans to achieve the dream of home ownership is their first place of attack. Additionally, they are currently pushing a national consumption tax that, if enacted, will result in the single most regressive tax code in our history. A plan which
increases the percentage of tax you pay as your income
decreases. Does their disdain for middle America know any bounds?
Although these politicians have not been known for engaging our neighbors abroad in developing international policies, it seems when it comes to redistributing wealth from working American’s to donor corporations they know no international boundaries. Instead of adopting policies which would keep production here they have endeavored to encourage the outsourcing of opportunity. We have suffered the results of these failed policies watching manufacturing jobs lost overseas while being replaced here with the economic wasteland of the service sector. Seeing these results and hearing our cries for reforms, how as our leadership responded? Not by acting to reverse the trend nor even stem its tide by enacting policies to encourage even more of it. We now see outsourcing moving to new areas including information technology, engineering and architecture, and research and development. Will it end anytime soon? Not with current leadership as now they even give preferred “American Business” contract status to those who have out sourced most of their operations, including moving their headquarters off shore to avoid paying taxes. When we have complained about the continuing loss of opportunity in our nation how have they responded? By brandishing the word “
protectionist” at us. As if protecting American opportunity is a demon to be exorcised vice a moral imperative they have been charged with upholding. All the while they adopt policies which are consistently protective of those causing the lowering of our standard of living. One is forced to wonder if even a return feudalism would satisfy them.
Let us not think that these assaults on our prosperity should be limited to our working years. They set out on a mission to ensure our retirement years are full of woe and worry also. They have endeavored to destroy the Social Security Program. A program widely accepted as the most successful in our nation’s history. Instead of offering our seniors, there very people who help build this great nation, the security they deserve they have instead try to offer the gamble of the stock market. A market incidentally, which itself has recently been plagued by scandals that have resulted in thousands having their retirement nest eggs reduced to pennies on the dollar. And don’t be fooled by the leadership’s current silence on the issue. They have not scrapped the idea, they are only waiting for a more opportune time to resurrect it. It would be thought with their efforts to destroy Social Security that they would make a concerted effort to shore up the solvency of private pension funds. But here too they have surrendered to their contributors by allowing them to continue to under fund their pension plans so their quarterly reports won’t suffer.
At every turn our current political leadership has enacted policies which have cut our prosperity and severely limited the opportunities a free society should have, both for ourselves and our children. What Can We Do? Our current political leadership has become totally unresponsive to its constituency. They continue to arrogantly ignore the publics wishes and push through legislation which is rapidly and greatly hurting working men and women. Acting through a group of ideological clones they have totally abandoned the system of checks and balances that our founders envisioned and have embarked upon a single minded path which at every turn has proven to have been a failure. And although they continue to propagandize that success is right around the corner (both officially and through “News surrogates”), good citizens are awaking and taking notice of both the rampant corruption of the current government and the results of it’s consistently failed policies.
If we fail to act now the situation will only become worse. The current leadership has shown no interest in responding to our pleas for reform. Instead they have ignored us or condescendingly patronized. If we allow them to continue we can expect a continued loss of our security both internationally and at home. The continuation of their current fiscal plans will result in the most drastic shift in fiscal policy in our history – shifting the tax burden from wealth to work including the loss of the home interest deduction and shifting to a national sales tax. Social Security will be gutted – the idea has been tabled but not forgotten and defaults in corporate retirement contracts will continue. We will continue to see the outsourcing of American opportunity while it becomes scarcer and scarcer at home until eventually we become a service only society bordering on feudalism. And with the failure to invest in the education of children there is no indication that they will be able to turn it around. Is this the American Dream that we will live with now and pass on to our children.
Yes the time to act is now. Speak out against the current government without reservation. Their arrogance and lack of responsiveness to the American public has earned our scorn. More than that, our family friends and neighbors deserve to have the common sense of the facts laid before them. If we fail to speak out, we do them, ourselves and our nation a great disservice and aid and abet the current political leadership in their quest to continue to take the nation in the wrong direction.
Next go to the polls and throw the hypocritical thieves out. They still believe they can blind us with 30 second commercials appealing to motherhood and apple pie, while all the while stealing the dreams of security and prosperity from us and our children. The time is now to show them that we are much smarter than they give us credit for – that we have examined the results of their governance and no amount of pandering or propaganda will weaken our wisdom and resolve to achieve a brighter future.
Finally if we fail to act now, if we decide to sit quietly on the sidelines and hope that things will change on their own, history will surely remember us as the generation that allowed the American Dream to die. Mark Tully.
