Today's post concerns politics in general in this country, as it continues to evolve from what our founders intended.
As you may have guessed, if you read my other blogs, and my business site at casinosurveillancenews.com, I am at heart a true conservative---perhaps more conservative than the ones who label themselves such.
I am NOT "reasonable" about a number of things. That doesn't mean I "won't listen to reason." It means I simply do not accept that "business as usual" and "that's just the way they do things in Washington" are acceptable excuses to running the United States of America into bankruptcy, simply to ensure that the current politicians remain in office.
Today's blog concerns a potential solution to today's political troubles. For many years I have avoided, at all costs, any type of involvement in politics---local, state, or national.
However, from my perspective of a person who avoids politics, I have watched the country rapidly approaching the brink of disaster. We have elected a President and kept a Congress in office who seem to be intent on destroying the Untied States of America as we know it.
King Obama was elected on a platform of "CHANGE." He did not specify the changes needed, but a few things he said involved stopping "business as usual" in Washington. Yet his moves, over the last two years, involve nothing more than "business as usual"---- implementing changes without consulting Congress, ramming bills through Congress using the political machinery of his party, trading votes, hiding measures within bills that would be politically disastrous for opponents to vote down---in other words, doing business in Washington DC in exactly the same way it has been done for generations: "You scratch my back, and I won't tell anyone what I know about you."
King Obama's policies are on the verge of bankrupting the country---and its people, except for those too rich to feel the pain of increased taxes on a personal level. We are extending government benefits to an incredible variety of non-producers, and the cost is to be born not by those who can afford it, but by those, like you and me in the middle class, who have always funded government operations.
Currently I am making more money, on a gross-income level, than both of my parents put together ever made in their lives. I don't have expensive habits.
(I have no medical expenses to speak of myself, though my wife has a few. My stereo is an antique, bought at discount at a time when I had disposable income. My TV was free, and until I moved away from Las Vegas to an apartment near Philadelphia, I didn't have cable. Now my cable is included in my internet access costs, without which my business can't survive. I can't afford to go fishing, and had to put my other so-called hobbies---every one of which used to produce more than enough to pay for themselves---on hold, because they can no longer produce enough income to support them, because no-one has the money to buy.)
Yet next year's taxes, with both increases in tax and new inclusions in taxable income, may very well bankrupt me, and will certainly make it impossible for me to be as productive in my business and personal life as I have been over the past two decades. And yet my level of personal and business debt is very low by comparison to the reported "norm," or average, in income level comparable to mine. I truly feel sorry for people who are trying to raise children in today's economy.
Well, Your Majesty, King Obama, you wanted CHANGE, and the people who elected you wanted CHANGE.
How is this for CHANGE, and a cessation of BUSINESS AS USUAL in Washington?
The only way to create real CHANGE in Washington is for a one-time only complete changeover of the political incumbents in Washington.
(The British do this every time they have an election. However, I prefer our own system, which gives us an opportunity every two years to get rid of deadbeats, ineffectives, and those who are not responding to their constituents.)
Let's just do it. In the next election, and the one after that,
VOTE OUT EVERY SINGLE INCUMBENT who is up for election.
Do it in the primaries, if you are registered to a party.
In the 2012 election,
vote in an amendment prohibiting a person from holding office for more than two succeeding terms. If his or her constituents want him or her back after a four-or-six year layoff, well and good. But no more than two succeeding terms in office.
Let the politicians feel what it's like to get laid off. Do a background check, and publish the results, on every single candidate for office.
Force them to publish the entire results of a background check, paid for at the expense of their opponents, on their own website. Require that it be distributed in print to every person in their district.
Listen, I had to produce documentation to prove my identity, the fact I was the person I was claiming to be, that I was born in the United States at the place and time I listed----just to GET A JOB n the gaming industry in Pennsylvania. I am talking about a government-certified birth certificate or other documentation that required that.
Please watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwhKuunp8D8&feature=player_embedded
If this link doesn't work, then you must realize that the video was removed from the internet by order of the President or his lackeys. I have tested it, and it works at the time this is posted.
But King Obama has not produced documentation even to prove he is a natural-born citizen, as required by the Constitution. Since he took office, he has even appointed a Supreme Court Justice who was willing to dismiss the lawsuit requiring evidence that he meet the requirements for office as set out in the Constitution. Do you see a discrepancy here?
A Representative should have to be out of office for at least two years before running for the Senate. A Senator or Representative should have to be replaced by his electorate, or end his two terms in office, BEFORE running for president. (Just think about the two years we pay these people for handling the business of the country when in fact they are spending the majority of their time and attention out on the campaign trail, trying to ensure they get re-elected.)
Keep the ten-year cap on a President's term in office. But add, in the off-year elections (such as 2010, 2014, 2018) a necessity for the President to be
confirmed in office. This would not end the term if he or she did not pass, but simply make it impossible to run for re-election in the regular Presidential race if the electorate is not happy after the first two years. Prohibit ANY money being spent on campaign messages regarding this particular vote.
This could save us from the generally lazy nature of the electorate: note how often incumbents get re-elected, both in Congress and the Presidency, simply because they have to choose between an evil they know and an evil they don't know. Simply word the question on the off-year ballot something like "Are you satisfied with the performance of the President since his inauguration?" A simple majority vote of NO would disqualify the President from running for re-election.
A general cleanup would also be necessary: get rid of some of the benefits that politicians currently have. Do you realize that, once a person serves a single term in office in the House or Senate, they have free medical care for the rest of their lives? It doesn't matter if they get voted out after a single term as ineffective or destructive or simply unresponsive to their constituents: they still have this benefit, as well as many others.
Restrict the people who get elected into office to the same retirement benefits as their constituents. That means that Representatives and Senators and Presidents and judges on federal benches go on Social Security and Medicare when they retire, just like the rest of us who qualify (having spent our working careers paying into the system), with NO ADDED BENEFITS of any kind. (Note: they should be restricted to the benefits they have paid for, just like the rest of the working public. No benefits above the level they have paid for.)
These people should realize that when they vote in bills that will bankrupt the system, it will have an effect on them, and on their families, just like the rest of us.
Perhaps this will stop adding people to the OUTFLOW who have never contributed to the funds to begin with. The public welfare benefits are supposed to be for those who are unable, for physical or mental disability reasons, to provide for themselves. I don't mind welfare for those who are truly unable to provide---such as the physically disabled, those who are unable after service to this country to provide for themselves, or those born unable.
However, I truly object to providing, from my hard-earned income, for those who are simply too lazy to work, or who flock over the borders of this country simply because they can tap into MY INCOME.
I worked hard for my experience, worked hard to train myself, and don't feel I should provide an income that can be, in fact, better than mine, for those who have never worked or contributed to the funds they are tapping, simply so that they can vote some corn-and-circuses politician into office.
(For understanding of the term, look into the history of the republic of Rome, just before it became an Empire, with an Emperor. And yes, there IS a reason I call the current President "king obama." As a student of history, I see a lot of parallels between these decades at the beginning of the twenty-first century and the end of the republic of Rome, the beginning of the Roman Empire, which ended in fire and blood and a Dark Ages that lasted for a thousand years.)
Let this be a beginning. I am not able, due to the need to provide for my family, to put much time into this. There are professionals in the game of politics who could refine these ideas into workable forms, acceptable by the electorate. I DON"T CARE IF THEY ARE ACCEPTABLE BY THE POLITICIANS, AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU. The politicians are supposed to be serving us, and looking out for OUR INTERESTS, not their own.
If a two-term limit is unacceptable by the politicians, fire them. That is the purpose of the ballot.
You have the power. Use it.
Jim Goding
