Michael1942's Blog

In reading the local paper daily, I often look through the financial pages to keep my eye on the ball. Today a reader wrote this to Malcolm Berko:
The writer was complaining about President Obamas politics and its eminent ruining of the country. Mr. Berko’s response was:”There are lots of folks like you who have their tutu’s in a tizzy. They strongly dislike Obama and blame him for our huge deficits, our high unemployment rate, problems in our schools, the recession, crashing real estate prices, immigration, Social Security, taxes and even the weather. However as I discussed in my Private letter: “Many Americans are using Obama as a scapegoat because of his skin color and his visibility. The blame- 100 percent of it belongs to the 535 members of Congress.” In short, the White House does not make immigration laws, Congress does. the White House does not write tax laws, Congress does. The white House did not cause Fannie Mae to lower standards and hence forth fail, but Congress did, the White House did not expand the coverage and cost of medicaid, Congress did. The White house did not write legislation that forced medicare to overextend itself, but Congress did. And the White House did not write laws forcing Social Security to be more generous with it’s benefits, but Congress did. Get this through your thick skull: The culprits are the 535 members of Congress. There’s little difference between Congress and a circus midway, which a famous showman succinctly summed up: ” A sucker is born every minute P.T. Barnum
declared, and a Congressman born every hour to make sure no sucker is spared.” Congress is a metastasizing cancer that is turning us into worms by sucking the marrow from our spines.” To add my spin to this, there is still a bit of Racism in America so some of the opinions of the writer may be based in that.
I have had this opinion of Congress and have written it a number of times but it is not always published, as a country we have not moved as far from pre civil war racism as we would like to believe. Political rhetoric does not solve problems, upright elected officials does.

Why is it the much maligned state of Illinois’s legislature can take a pay cut (even with some objections) and the Federal Congress cannot? With the economic problems faced by the country and by extension the public (voters), what is the problem with the Congress (many of whom are among the top 3 to 5 % of wealthy Americans) taking a hit along with the voters (their constituents)? The old saying “walk a mile in my shoes and you will understand” should apply here. This is not an exact rendition of this saying but it is close enough for government work. I take the actions (or lack of) of our current Congress as a personal affront and will do my part to correct this problem in the voting booth. We as voters must remember our elected officials are not Sainted and above the Constitution, they are just men and women we elected to do our work and they have failed regularly. In their failure our economy had been placed on a slippery slope to a depression like situation. We are victims of pre-election rhetoric with no real substance in reality and will quickly be forgotten after the elections.