The U.S. political system is inherently setting up for the government failure. Why?
How do we select candidates?
There are primaries and caucuses. Candidates spend their time and money campaigning to win these events.
Who votes in the primaries and caucuses?
Typically, the people voting have very strong political opinions. They are quite often “the extreme right” and “the extreme left”. As a result, we end up with candidates such as Incumbent President Obama (extreme left), perhaps Santorum (extreme right), and perhaps Gingrich (extreme right).
Who are “We The People?”
The majority of the general public considers themselves Independent, Republican or Democrat. Let’s refer to the majority of the country as “We The People”. “We The People”, in general, are open-minded to listening to logical ideas; ideas that fit the current situation and environment.
Remember, “We The People” are not the typical people voting in a primary or caucus.“We The People” hear a concept and determine if it makes sense to them. “We The People” don’t automatically label the idea a republican or democratic idea. “We The People” think of ideas in terms like
Does this make sense?
How would this affect me?
Is it good for the country?
What happens after the candidate gets the nomination?
The candidate’s party consolidates behind the candidate for fundraising and strategic purposes.
They, this political organization, know (a) they needed the votes of the “extreme right or left” to get the nomination, but (b) now they need to win over “We The People” to win the general election. In other words, they now need to give the appearance of being somewhat moderate to win the votes of “We The People” .
And, as we all know, they also need to posture and lobby big spenders to contribute to their campaigns. Wall Street. CEOs. Big business. The top 1%.
So what happens after the win the general election?
We now have another President or Congressman whose TRUE views are Liberal (extreme Left) or Conservative (extreme Right).
They put their extreme political views before what is best for the country.
They are so extreme and closed-minded, they won’t agree with any ideas backed by “the other side of the aisle”. And nothing gets accomplished.
My friend KRS posted a great image on fb…. (I hope you don’t mind I borrowed it.) Love it! The people commenting on her wall spurred some thought…
Change is painful. You may say the USA has been experiencing change since 2007-2008. Perhaps it’s permanent? Who knows?
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Let’s clarify something right here. REVENUE = TAXES.
Replacing the word TAXES with the word REVENUE is a brilliant marketing spin created by the Obama Administration . It is still TAXES. . We are still paying these TAXES. And the government is still wasting our TAXES. And we all know there is a tremendous amount of waste in spending our TAXES.
And by trying to increase TAXES (or as people drinking their “Kool Aid” say Revenue) it’s wasting even more TAX money.
The government is broken. Can it be made any simpler? Would you keep pouring water into a cracked bottle? “… Oh let’s compromise… let’s only pour less water into the cracked bottle…” The bottle is still leaking and we are still wasting water!
It’s painful but it is time to stop “kicking the can down the road” and not getting anything accomplished. The government collects plenty of TAXES. We are spending more than we bring in.
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I love it when the average citizen, drinks the Washington DC Kool Aid, and makes a reference about compromise.
The Obama Administration has been given the positive-media-created-label that they have “reached across the aisle” and “have been willing to compromise”. This is strictly media spin. And when you, the average citizen, hears something 10, 20, or 100 times, you start believing it.
This is a common format for President Obama reaching across the aisle:
Obama: The drink for the meeting will be Hot Chocolate.
Republican: We are allergic to chocolate so we disagree.
Obama: In that case we shall have Hot Cocoa.
Republican: Hot Cocoa is also chocolate so we disagree with Hot Cocoa.
Obama: OK. In that case we shall have Swiss Miss.
Republican: Swiss Miss is also chocolate so we disagree with Swiss Miss.
And then the Political Machine spreads the news that they have “reached across the aisle” and the other side is “unwilling to compromise”.
Get it?
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The Tea Party. Domestic terrorists? You may hate them. You may say they are too extreme. I personally do not agree with them, but I respect their willingness to be the bad guys to achieve the common good.
Look closer at what they did. They were the only “group” willing to take a stand for change.
When The Tea Party wouldn’t blindly raise the debt ceiling and insisted on budget cuts, they were doing the right thing. Everyone hated them. The media made them out to be villains. But they were the only ones not allowing Washington to “kick the can down the road” and continue on our path to bankruptcy. Think about it.
Change is painful. Often there needs to be a “bad guy” to get things done.
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I have to go now. We are contesting our PROPERTY REVENUE, and I need to complete the paperwork…
These are numbers from 2008, and old, but you will get the point.
Why are we looking to cut domestic programs to get under the debt ceiling and get closer (he he) to a balanced budget? Why are we so quick to cut domestic programs when we pay out all this foreign aid? Are we the world’s martyrs?
Why not simply cut 10% of the US foreign Aid to each country we support? Don’t touch their military aid. We don’t want to hurt their sovereignty. Cut the economic aid. We Americans are tightening our belts, why shouldn’t they share in the tightening?
We simply don’t have the money!
If we cut 10% of our foreign aid (economic aid only), we save $5.9 billion!
Table 1298. U.S. Foreign Economic and Military Aid by Major Recipient Country: 2008
Cutting only Economic Aid. Leaving Military Aid Untouched.
[In millions of dollars (16,836 represents $16,836,000,000). 2008.
Right now the world is pretty tough. Wars. High unemployment. Bad economy. Major government and political decisions (like health care reform) being made behind closed doors which is creating a feeling of helplessness in the US. Promises being broken to the citizens of the US (such as transparency).
How do we escape this madness for a few minutes?
Some of us watch sports.
Turn off CNN. Turn off MSNBC. Turn off Fox News.
Turn on ESPN. Watch a game. Watch SportsCenter.
The problem is Obama and politics are now invading that “arena”.
It’s not the orientation. I agree with him on some topics. I disagree with him on other topics. I resent when he has to stick his nose into sports. He has done it many times. A couple of examples… He inserted himself into a broadcast of a Jets game in September. He fills out an NCAA Hoops bracket. Millions of people do it. Who cares?
Please cut it out. Please, please give us somewhere, a safe-haven, to have a little peace and not think about politics and the economy. Sports was it.
I’m glad I am not taking the SAT’s in the near future because I would have a problem with the definitions of certain words.
<from nypost.com>
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly told voters that the health care overhaul would take place in a public forum, most notably on C-SPAN …
In a video montage posted on Breitbart.tv, Obama is seen promising voters — on eight different occasions — that the health care debate would be transparent.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly told voters that the health care overhaul would take place in a public forum, most notably on C-SPAN, …..
In a video montage posted on Breitbart.tv, Obama is seen promising voters — on eight different occasions — that the health care debate would be transparent…
According to thefreedictionary.com… Transparent –
adj. — frank, open, direct, straight, straightforward, candid, forthright, unequivocal, unambiguous, plain-spoken striving to establish a transparent parliamentary democracy frank
Ant — mysterious, vague, unclear, ambiguous, deceptive, disingenuous
Unless there is a new definition of transparent / transparency, there is no transparency taking place during the health care reform process.
Now The House and The Senate are getting together behind closed doors trying to push through health care reform. C-Span has requested to broadcast the meetings. It appears the administration is denying C-Span the opportunity to broadcast the meetings.
Why the lack of transparency? They already seem to have the votes, so what is the problem?
Hopefully whatever is passed will help the country. Seriously, what is the problem letting us see these meetings? It was promised to us during the campaign on many occasions.
You are making it into a bigger issue (than it is) by denying C-Span the opportunity to broadcast the proceedings.
Take a look at this video summary of the last decade in 7 minutes. A lot has happened in those years… It has been a tough 10 years but a lot of good things also happened. Happy New Year to everyone.
We all know Health Care Reform is a major issue in the United States. The Obama Administration is making it a top priority.
Why can’t we simply try this?
Tort reform – If we get rid of the frivolous lawsuits, everyone wins. Insurers. Doctors. Consumers.
Let health insurers cross states – this will immediately create competition without the government expanding and, in reality, creating unfair competition. How will a private insurer compete with the government? … And the competition will drive rates down!
Easy. Let’s try it. And it can probably be easily implemented within a reasonable amount of time.
People are screaming at each other over health care reform. How can anyone be passionate one way or another without knowing the proposed plan(s)?
Obama, Democrats and Republicans are each campaigning for/against it.
WHAT IS IT?! Where can we find out SPECIFICALLY what is being proposed?
None of these road-shows should be taking place until the multiple bills and proposals are combined into one bill…. then we should all work from there.
It seems that it is still all theory and rumours… Please, someone point us to one place where we can see the specific proposals! Substance! Not theory!
Also, please do not set these random deadlines on a subject that will affect the future of thise country.
Please do not pull the same "crap" of offering a 1000+ page bill, like was done with the stimulus, and expect it to be voted on the next day.
It is a subject that we all agree needs fixing. Let’s do it right. We may not have a second chance.
