Gimme Back My Government

People!! We have lost control of our government. Our “representatives” are making decisions and doing things in the name of “What the people want”, yet I don’t recall anyone talking to me about any of it. On the contrary, they seem to be avoiding me altogether. This year my “representatives” didn’t even come around prior to mid-term elections to ask me what I wanted them to accomplish. So I wrote them letters to tell them that I was concerned and, to my surprise, they even responded. In fact all of their letters were pretty much the same except for the signature and the fact that they didn’t address the subject I wrote about.

So! Since they don’t seem interested I thought I would talk to “We the People” (that’s you) and see what you think. Maybe some of you will step up and decide to do something.

The number one issue is naturally the economy. I understand the need to “bailout” certain companies for the sake of retaining peoples jobs and keeping the economy going. However, I believe that we should have established some rules for receiving tax dollars to clean up their mess. For one thing I think the government should assign a “representative” to oversee the bank/company receiving the money, to ensure they don’t screw things up again. Secondly, it should have been a condition of receiving the money that the top dogs resign, after all, the failure happened on their watch. You and I would have been fired if we messed up and lost a lot of money, so why not the CEO/CFO’s of the companies in question? 

Another major issue on America’s mind is always Iraq. First I want to say that no matter how you feel about the war, you should always support the troops. They are volunteers and following the orders of their superiors and therefore did not have a choice in the matter. My personal belief (having spent two years in Iraq), is that we ought to finish what we started. By that I mean we shouldn’t just begin pulling out. For one thing as soon as it gets out that we are beginning a “phased withdraw” the terrorists will begin making plans to take over. What we have to do is get the Iraqis the supplies and equipment they need to get their military and police up to par, put them on notice that they have 12 months to do it and provide the training needed to make it happen. After that they are on their own because we have other countries to save.

We have got to get our healthcare costs under control and make sure that all Americans have access to the medical attention they need. Medicare and Medicaid should be expanded to cover everyone who does not work and employers should be required to have a plan for everyone else. The government should cap charges on healthcare and medicine. I recently went to the doctors’ office and was only there for a little over an hour and the charge was over $600 and that didn’t include the four prescriptions I had to get somewhere else.

Let’s get a flat tax in place as soon as possible. I’m so tired of seeing discussions of taxes on the news. Even the local communities try to fool us by convincing us that a 1% sales tax won’t hurt much and even visitors to the city will pay that. I guess they forgot about the 1% tax they added last year and the year before that. The federal government is just as bad. I just happened to be looking over the Constitution of the United States the other day and I saw where the government can impose taxes on income. That’s OK, I understand that our government needs money to operate and spend on all these countries overseas that we need oil and stuff from. But where did property taxes, inheritance tax, capital gains tax and all the other taxes come from. I think they should impose a set percentage, say 25%, although less is better, on everyone’s income. The amount should be set no matter how much you make. In other words rich people shouldn’t have to pay a higher percentage just because they were smart enough to make more money. The 25% or what ever will be divided amongst the city, state and federal government and then do away with all the other taxes and leave us alone.

I want my representatives to start representing. Members of Congress get a much better retirement plan than you and I do even after serving only four (4) years. They can even collect after being convicted of a crime while still in office. In addition, they take a lot more days off than our employers would allow for us little people. So I think we should begin holding our representatives to a higher standard or at least one equal to what is expected of us by our employers. The system for paying all of our elected representatives should be changed to a salary plus bonus plan. The bonus would only be paid when a representative leaves office or is re-elected.

When we go to the ballots there should be a new question on every ballot in every state which would determine whether or not our representatives can collect their bonus; Did Mr/Ms (Insert name here) represent your interests to the best of his/her ability? If the majority feels that the representative did their best then the bonus is paid as soon as the current term expires. However, if the people feel that they were not properly represented then there is no bonus. I think that a system like this would force our elected officials to keep in touch and understand how we are feeling about the issues.

Oh yeah, from now on when someone running for office says that they are going to change this or change that, I for one want to see the plan. If someone says they can do better than the current elected officials we should have the right to know how they intend to do it before we vote for them.

I haven’t presented any of this to the President yet, I wouldn’t do that without checking with my “People” (as in “We the People”). These are just my opinions for now. So what do you think? Are you with me on this? Do you want to be my representative? If so let me know and I’ll set some time aside to discuss the issues and see what you have in mind. If I approve I’ll support you and check with my “People” before we go forward.