What we saw over the week-end was a demonstration that John Boehner is no different than Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. They apparently think it’s okay to create significant legislation without input from their members in secret. It makes it hard to have confidence in Boehner as Speaker of the House of Representatives to do the right thing. He’s no better than Harry or Nancy.
The fact that Boehner and Reid may have conspired to create bad legislations is secondary to the real problem; elected officials failed to follow their own rules required to pass legislation.
The Congress in both houses has a committee structure that is designed to promote public review and member debate on the merits of proposed legislation. One of the desirable aspects of our government is the requirement that the actions be deliberative. Nobody likes to have to pass it before we learn what’s in it.
And yet, the “elite” leadership in the House (from both parties) did conspire with Senate Majority Leader Reid to craft legislation authorizing government spending of more than a Trillion Dollars without the opportunity for members of either party to even know what they were being asked to vote on.
In his wisdom, Speaker Boehner recognized that his caucus was not united in support of his plan so he enlisted the special interests of the Democrat opposition to cobble together enough votes to pass a bad bill to the Senate where outgoing Senate Majority Leader Reid faced a similar struggle assembling enough votes from both sides of the aisle to slip it past the Senate and the rest of us. With the help of “incentives” they were successful.
I think what I object to at the base level is the use of omnibus legislation period. I don’t like the idea of special interest combined bills that sell good government down the river for the votes of pork barrel voters.
I’m wondering what all the congressional budget committees have been working on if they aren’t the ones that proposed the bill that was passed so quickly. I’m wondering how the House Committee Chairs that attached riders to a budget bill without debate in their committees.
Being a supporter of the Republican side of the process, I am not encouraged with the performance of my guys. I got nothing. I am not pleased with the underhanded tactics employed by Boehner and McCarthy. If this is the leadership my party is proposing for the coming year, I’m not feeling too good.
One of the reasons American voters turned out the D’s in the fall elections was a lack of transparency. That would be the decision making in secret without member debate and public observation. That would be flat out lying to us.
Early in my public service career, my mentor Kelly Robinson taught me the importance of process in government. The absolute need to develop public processes that insure participation by all parties (and I don’t mean political parties) so that the collaborative outcome has legitimacy. I didn’t say fair or just, I did say legitimate since fairness or justness are fleeting. If we agree on rules we operate under in advance then we should be legit; the caveat being suspension of the rules because of “emergency”. Think about how many times your elected officials told you they needed to respond to the emergency which allows them to suspend their own rules and their accountability.
We elect these full time legislators and pay them handsome salaries with benefits to do the business of government and yet they are constantly working in “emergency” mode. What’s with that? If they weren’t in “recess” all the time they might get something done.
As unfortunate as it might be, Jonathan Gruber was right; the American public is stupid. And for my team, the conservatives, the leadership within the Beltway is in full agreement with him. The term “political elite” applies to both parties. Sadly, the thought that our elected officials are there to serve us is just not true. After a single term in office, the establishment determines whether a newcomer is suitable for membership in the club (that is a team player) and with that almost a guaranteed job for life serving the club and not the constituents that repeatedly elect them.
I am challenged to defend Republicans for their behavior and decisions by people I meet in my community. I have always said that the further from the constituents an elected official works, the less they feel obligated to those constituents and the poorer the quality of government. I know that when we do our homework and know what is in the hearts of our candidates by their past deeds (and to a lesser extent their words) we can decide whether to send them to a government job far, far away. It’s character, honesty and morality that will define their service.
I don’t like it when our elected officials fail to do their jobs and the result is threatening to “shut down” the government. I guess if you fail to do your job, you are in continual emergency mode.
Leadership is one of the qualities we expect in every candidate we elect. I can’t think of a position where the candidate doesn’t talk about his leadership qualities. What I am seeing in our federal government is a failure of leadership at every level. I don’t have much confidence that many of the 537 elected officials in Washington DC are working on my behalf.
I don’t want the government to shut down, I want everyone on the job who should be on the job. That includes those elected officials on the job, doing their jobs. I don’t want my congress woman to tell me that she is not part of the leadership and she can’t control the agenda. I want her to stand up in the House and demand that she and her colleagues be included in the process of government. If that means she’s rattling the cage, so be it. Edmund Burke hit the nail on the head when he said “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing.” Bad government can only happen if good men and women choose to let it happen.
I guess if you are corrupt then being silent makes perfect sense. I’m coming to the conclusion that since so many of them are silent, they must be of questionable character if they are not corrupt.
The burden of good government starts with each and every one of us holding our elected officials accountable by not being silent. Like I said, evil can only prevail if good men and women do nothing.
Regardless of your political point of view, I encourage you to start looking at what your government is doing to you. Not for you, but to you. Government is not serving the people and longer, we are serving the government. I’m sorry, but our Constitution specifically doesn’t provide for that. Please join me as we begin the process of holding our government accountable by not being silent.
No Loss for Words 
Build American, Employ Americans, Buy American
by Steve DanaI can remember a couple years ago when the Boeing Company was planning the 787 Dreamliner program and where to build the airplane. There was mega competition between our state and a bunch of others. I remember a half dozen state representatives from various states making a case for Boeing building the factory there. Attracting Boeing jobs to their states and the economy created by those jobs is the thing we want for our whole country moving forward with the Trump administration.
The state of Washington was eager to throw in the kitchen sink to keep jobs here while South Carolina made a similar offer and was rewarded with an assembly plant.
Don’t tell me that every manufacturing company in and out of the US isn’t playing that same game. Who is willing to give up the farm for the jobs our company brings when we choose your state or country.
If our government adopts regulatory policies, tax policies and trade policies that encourage businesses to move jobs out of the country, can we be too surprised when they do move to Mexico, China or Viet Nam?
When the goal of our elected officials is to tear down our country in order to build up foreign economies it all makes sense. The New World Order folks are determined to level the playing field and it will happen at the expense of Americans and America. For me, whatever we do needs to consider American interests first, period.
The two sectors of the economy growing in our country are Service and Public Employees. Since we need a robust service sector to take care of us this group cannot be outsourced. We are making it really easy for immigrants (illegal or legal) to get jobs in the service sector. The problem is that they are the lowest paid sector and only insures that the workers remain poor.
The health care industry is one of the fastest growing service sector components, it does include workers in upper income areas, but since it’s closely tied to insurance companies, it isn’t really a free market industry. Consider how many doctors are retiring because of the government and insurance company restraints. Health care is a growth industry, but because of the regulation and insurance it’s not as much a profit center it once was.
The Public Employees range from Police and Fire Fighters, to city, county and state public works employees, transportation workers and many social service agencies. Federal agencies also employ millions of Americans. The good news for these employees is the pay tends to be higher than service sector jobs. The bad news is public employees work for a non-producing segment of the economy. Public agencies rely on the private sector economy to produce the revenues that feed the growth of government agencies. Can you think of any government worker that is paid the minimum wage?
The bottom line is we need a very robust tech segment coupled with a robust manufacturing segment to create the jobs required to have a growing, producing economy that will produce tax revenues to feed government’s needs. The role of government is to be good stewards of the public funds but since they didn’t have to work or sacrifice to make that money, it is often squandered.
The key is not the government, but the private sector businesses that produce the products and services and jobs that make up a healthy economy.
How could NAFTA or any other international trade agreement that encourages American businesses to move their facilities out of the country be good for Americans?
It used to be that there were American companies and foreign companies. Now companies are international or not affiliated with a country; they are looking out for their share-holders first, second, third and last. Privately held American companies are an exception but they represent a small percentage of businesses and a large number of employees.
If we want to grow the American economy, we need to create incentives to retain businesses and jobs here like we did with Boeing while we consider appropriate penalties for companies that move their jobs off shore but want to sell their goods here in America.
The answers are not simple, but since the companies don’t have allegiance to America first then I’m not as likely to cut them slack if their decisions exploit our economy but don’t enhance it.
If Americans believe that they will get a fair shake from any international government or company, they are nuts. We need to fight for our economy even if it means some consumer goods are more expensive. Build American, Employ Americans, Buy American.
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