545 People

[Greg S]

Part 1

545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese -

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then
campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are
against deficits, we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and
high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations.
The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code. Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy. Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred Senators, 435 C ongressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court
justices - 545 human beings out of the 300 million - are directly, legally,
morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague
this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was
created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty
to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They
have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a Senator, a
Congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if
they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the
pow er to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the
legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

[Greg S]

Part 2

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what
they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of
party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of
gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up
and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only
propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole
responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving
appropriations and taxes. Who is the Speaker of the House? She is the
leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the
President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they
can pass it over his veto if they agree to by a 2/3 margin.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545
people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and
irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not
traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth
that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must
follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ .

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not
available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

[Greg S]

Part 3

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and
whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can
reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom
they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief
that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation,"
or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power. < BR>
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it is up to you, though you appear to have several choices.

1. You can send this to everyone in your address book, and hope "they" do
something about it.

2. You can agree to "vote against" everyone that is currently in office,
knowing that the process will take several years.

3. You can decide to "run for office" yourself and agree to do the job
properly.

4. Lastly, you can sit back and do nothing, or re-elect the current bunch.

YOU DECIDE

[orion]

Greg-you're a neat guy.

Sometimes i think we would be bettter off with a monarchy with no legislature.

Our congressmen dont really represent the people-they represent themselves and the special interests that finance their campaigns. They're just the puppets that do the bidding of the oligarchs of big labor and big business.

Given the fact that only about 50% of the eligible voters at most take part in the presidential elections things are pretty much a sham anyway.

These trends do not bode well for the continuation of so-called representative democracy as we know it or as the children are taught in civics classes.

[Cujo]

It is true that the turn out for elections is sadly low. It's hard to say if the results would change even if everyone voted. Nor is it clear whether more voters would change the way government acts.

It is true that special interests have too much power. It is something that needs to be addressed but it is a complex problem since many special interests such as AARP represent a lot of regular citizens and are working an agenda that those members of their group pay to have pushed.

A monachy like almost any other form of government can work in certain situations. If the monarch is a fool or a tyrant a monarchy does not work well. If the monarch is a kind, generous, honest, wise and brilliant leader, then a monarchy could work well.

Human beings are not perfect. We seem to have an illusion that we are "highly advanced" because of our many recent technological and scientific accomplishments. But we should remeber that most humans were still living as nomads or hunter gatherers just a few thousand years ago and that until quite recent history most of the understanding of nature was mostly explained through spirits and entities.

There are still people in the world persecuting others as "witches". We still have large numbers of people in the "civilized or technologically advanced" part of the world who work in jobs that require science and mathemeatics yet they explain many of many fairly easily explained events in terms of mystical reasons or divine interventions.

The government was not dropped here from some alien space craft or they didn't pull up and jump out of a boat from Europe and set up governance. We elected the keys decision makers and they appointed many others. Others received their jobs supposedly based on their resumes' but they could also be there through patronage. We are the government. The government is just more of humanity I described above.

There are a lot of other systems of government. I am not sure how well any of them would work as long as superstion, ignorance, greed, jealousy, fear, prejudice and other such human character weaknesses are common.

Right now, our capitalist system has been influenced greatly by greed. That can change but we as a collective society must make a conscious efort to discuss that issue and then make a collective effort to change.

I don't like to sound cynical but the odds don't look good. I think getting everyone to understand algebra on a fairly high level might be an easier task.

[Cujo]

“Seek simplicity but distrust it”- Alfred North Whitehead

People love to talk about simplicity. Most want a black and white world with simple straight forward answers...yes or no.

Simple answers are rare. Even when a solution seems simple, it is often just because we have not looked very deeply at the problem.

We can get rid of all the current politicians. But who do we nominate to replace them?

We can blame all of our current problems on government but who elected them?

We can complain about taxes but we "expect" certain protections and services from our government.

Government was created to solve or mediate problems within society. But like any mediation, there is always some sort of comprimise needed by someone. There will always be some who feel they are comprimising too much. In every struggle for dominance there seem to be some sort of casualties either in terms of a toll on humans or to the environment or to our beliefs or some other thing.

It's never simple.

When someone tells you something is simple or they have a simple solution, BE VERY SKEPTICAL.

[Greg S]

Hi Cujo,

I agree with every one of your points. The above came across my desk and I thought I would share it.

It would be nice sometimes if the politicos would just answer simply. Us simple folk would/could understand some of their stuff a lot more easily. Sometimes all it takes is a yes/no without a bunch of bloviating.

Me thinks that skepticism is always prudent, until the facts weigh in and I know down in my heart of hearts that the truth is being given.(or not)...

[Cujo]

Greg S wrote:

Hi Cujo,
I agree with every one of your points. The above came across my desk and I thought I would share it.
It would be nice sometimes if the politicos would just answer simply. Us simple folk would/could understand some of their stuff a lot more easily. Sometimes all it takes is a yes/no without a bunch of bloviating.
Me thinks that skepticism is always prudent, until the facts weigh in and I know down in my heart of hearts that the truth is being given.(or not)...

I want straight answers to simple questions like, "Are you a Democrat or Republican?" The choice is SIMPLE.

But a question like "Are you conservative or liberal?" is not so simple.
A person can be very liberal in some views and very conservative in others. And some of their views may follow more of a libertarian ideology. So a SIMPLE answer is not truly possible.

It helps when we understand that concept. It always sounds wonderful to people when a politician says "It's simple, I'll lower taxes." A lot of folks will applaud and think the guy is wonderful.

But the details of how they intend to lower taxes is not always such a simple thing. Most people won't ask because they don't want to be "bored" with details. But that lack of interest can be a big problem.

But as the old saying goes, "The devil is in the details."

[Same Old Song]

Cujo wrote:

<quoted text>
It helps when we understand that concept. It always sounds wonderful to people when a politician says "It's simple, I'll lower taxes." A lot of folks will applaud and think the guy is wonderful.
But the details of how they intend to lower taxes is not always such a simple thing. Most people won't ask because they don't want to be "bored" with details. But that lack of interest can be a big problem.
But as the old saying goes, "The devil is in the details."

Lowering taxes is just an illusion. Get rid of the AMT for people making less than 125,000

[Cujo]

Same Old Song wrote:

<quoted text>
Lowering taxes is just an illusion. Get rid of the AMT for people making less than 125,000

I expected this would happen. When I used "lower taxes" as an example of how simplistic answers are not always simple, I thought about prefacing the point with a disclaimer of sorts.

I could of used one of several common claims made by politicians. I chose that one because it is one of the most common and one of the more complex in terms of the deatils that follow the execution of such a promise.

A "chicken in every pot" would likely have been a better choice but the problem then is that few would likely be able to relate to it. But even a claim like "A chicken in every pot" has a lot more to it than the resulting dinner.

I agree that lowering taxes is an illusion especially if the cost of running the government isn't reduced at the same time. Therein lies the illusion. You take in money and you spend out money and if the the "in" is less than the "out" you have one of those "details" that may not have been discussed or mentioned when the politician said "I'll lower your taxes".

Getting rid of the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) is one more of those "details" that cause the eyes of most people to glaze over when the discussion comes up. Any system of taxation will have problems just as almost and system for doing anything will have problems.

It gets back to all that complexity. Things are rarely ever simple. It's like the "one size fits all" baseball caps. First, no matter what the label says, the caps will not fit "all". Second, you end up compromising by having this plastic size adapter in the back that has various "issues" related to it.

Society makes rules and those rules may cover the circunstances they were intended to manage quite well in MOST cases but there always seem to be those darn "exceptions" and suddenly what started out as a nice "simple" solutions starts to get much mor complicated.

Why? Because we are all "basically" the same but there are a lot of minor differences that prevent us all form being able to comply to a regulation made to address the "norm" or "median".