I love America, everything about it including the crazies on both the left and the right, well, I like arguing I guess. Regardless, I am easily moved by themes revolving around “We the people” honestly I am surprised that some people aren’t moved by basic patriotic themes. Maybe they don’t realize how lucky we have it, rich or poor we got it good, or they don’t realize how close the dream of America was almost snuffed out during the revolution and again during the civil war.
Perhaps I am more sensitive to the patriotic events because someone from my family has fought in both the revolution and the civil war. Half of my gene pool has been here since the start and the other half immigrated here in 1912 which makes me, simply, an American. My Italian grandparents came from Old Salle near the Adriatic Sea and, quit literally, the last village at the top of a mountain. My family visited our humble origins in 2000, but Old Salle was no longer, the town was moved 50 meters down the mountain to New Salle. We were literally Italian hillbillies I guess which I am proud of. My last name literally means “of the mountain” when properly spelled in Italian.
I am telling you this so you can understand me a little better, half of my family gave blood, sweat, tears and body parts to create and keep this great country together. The other half of my family taught me anything, in America, is possible even if you have no money and can’t speak the language as long as you work hard, never give up and have pride in what you do anything is possible.
However, the American system has changed, as I have written about, and nowadays everyone looks for shortcuts or “free” stuff. I feel like we lost the spirit of what made us great, the idea of sacrifice, doing things for others, having absolute pride in ones country even when you know the government is wrong, and civil service elected office, is sacred and was not meant to be a career.
Over the last 50 years there is simply no question that the majority of wealth that was created was a direct result of the expansion of government. Whether we are talking about defense contracts, web designers to build healthcare web sites, getting a sweet tax loophole, stimulus loans, or some public land lease deal a private person or company is profiting off of the taxpayer. These deals are largely provided by congressmen, senators, presidents, and even government employees who have well-to-do friends. Our elected officials don’t get outright bribes, per se, they get campaign contributions better yet PAC contributions which the candidate can just keep after they “retire” from office.
In short, government is now bought and paid for by those who can afford to pay. I am not talking about the Koch brothers running anti-Obama ads I am talking about direct contributions to the candidates for their PAC’s or reelection funds. All this pay-to-play is why we have 22,000 pages in the tax code, which you are supposed to know, according to the IRS and, of course, the bi-decade scandal involving corruption so blatant it can’t be covered up.
When our government is influenced solely by lobbyists and influence peddlers we do not have a true democratic republic. Why? Because you are not being represented and each person we vote for is supposed to represent us, but the reality is these politicians pay us lip service and give all the good things to their donors. Look at the ACA, Obamacare, did you know there was a trade agreement with the Congo, or similar country, in it? Look it up, it’s true! This is why bills are all 1,000 pages long now, Billy Bob from the great state of Whatever has added an amendment Odds are these amendments are giveaways to the highest bidder, campaign donor or “friend”. The odds are also pretty good the donor/friend will make money from said amendment That is how DC works, whether you are republican or democrat it is the same, actually, they are all friends behind closed doors, but not in public because they are clearly collaborating or colluding with each other.
The proof is how all elected officials net worth’s tend to increase drastically over time,no one is that lucky. After the “retire” from public service, they get great pensions on top of it all, they often end up at a lobbying firm or working for a big donor. How can that be that common in DC and not be against the rules? Well, we are dumb enough to let congress write their own rules that govern them.
Hell, it took 30 years to get the STOCK Act passed, this act prevents elected officials from making profits from the legislation they pass, i.e. A123 applied for a stimulus loan the congressman knows about the application before its publicly disclosed so s/he buys shares knowing they will get it and upon approval the shares jump. Outside of Washington if you did that you would have to disgorge all your profits, pay a fine and if you are Martha Stewart you go to jail. Well, it took years of effort and not until 2012 that this practice was made illegal for congress.
Hedge fund managers used to pay contacts in Capital Hill to learn about these deals so they could front run the idea. I am not kidding and there was a tracking fund set up that outperformed the S&P 500 by 10 points, a year! You simply can’t make this stuff up. I say this to people all the time, there is no need to talk about death panels or other crazy stuff because the truth is worse and even more unbelievable.
The point of this is that I got an email from Represent.US which has a 3 minute video summarizing these points and demanding congress pass the American Anti-Corruption Act. They are not asking fir money, but they will accept it, and I have no idea of their ideology and, frankly, I don’t care because this is an American issue, get money out of politics. They wrote the bill and are taking signatures to force congress to pass it which means the fox won’t be writing the rules to safeguard the hen house.
I urge you to watch the video, sign the petition and get involved as this is your country. We have sacrificed so much over the last 230+ years only to be at a point where wealth is created because of government largesse and not true market forces. We have $17.2 TRILLION in debt which will only get larger and at some point interest rates will go up, figure out how much interest we will have to pay @ 5% interest on $17.2T, its not good news. Regardless, government is getting so big we will likely never get it back to where it should be and this larger government is keen on more social spending because things are not as good as before the 2008 crisis, and will likely be this way for along time.
Like I said, people are not willing to do the hard jobs in order to get buy. Everyone wants to be an investment banker or other high paying service oriented jobs, but what economy can survive solely by providing services and not creating anything tangible?On top of this we have politicians and public servants working hard to help out their friends to make them richer and stick us, the taxpayer, with the bill.
Government was never supposed to be like this and career politicians was an inconceivable idea to the founders. The amount of public money going to private hands would be a revolutionary spark to the founders, the revolted over a 2% tax! While it is unlikely we can change what is happening in government, but we have to try. Just sign the petition, that’s all you have to do in order to help. We are all uniquely American in some way, whether your family has been here for 400 years or they immigrated here yesterday, they came for a better opportunity and the American way. Well, the American dream is being sold off to the highest bidder…
Represent US, The Best 3 Minute Video on Government Corruption
No comments:
Post a Comment