Congress is Destroying America

I do not think there could have been anything more difficult than to have been a Republican up for re-election in 2008. The party was in shambles and the Republicans were afraid of losing their seats because of the backlash against the Bush administration and their policies in Iraq. Republican Congress members worked night and day to distance themselves from the President.

The problem was, it backfired more than a old pickup truck with three big holes in its muffler. Republicans were so busy trying to prove they were not George W. Bush that they had no time left to say why. No ideas, no change – and certainly no path that would lead the nation anywhere but further into Iraq and Gitmo and Afghanistan and up the ying yangs of corporations and CEO's and lobbyists.

There was a worse fate than being viewed as a stand up man for George W. and that was to be labeled a stand up man for no one – and the Republican members of Congress did just that. The party lost a great number of seats and the American people branded the group of losers – and even the ones that won.... THE PARTY OF NO.

But did the Republicans learn from their mistakes? Absolutely not. They continued spiraling down this PARTY OF NO path right up until Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America. Obviously, they had yet to hear the Democrat majority skipping in the halls humming the happy tune by Johnny Mercer: ... "Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative..." because if they had learned a few lessons along the way – it would have been that the American people, who were losing jobs and watching everything collapse, much preferred the positive humming of Democrats to the overture the Republican's chose which had no words and was used in the fabulous movie “JAWS” to signal the end for the poor naked swimmer.

You've got accentuate the positive/ Eliminate the negative / Latch on to the affirmative / Don't mess with Mr. In Between.

The Republican Party messed with Mr. In-Between so much they lost their voice to him.

Fortunately, if there is one solid foundation in our Congress it is this: They are all the same smug bunch of self righteous creeps. Democrats didn't learn from the mistakes of the Republicans or the mistakes many politicians made during the Bush years. They were so smitten with the new President and the tidal wave of support he brought (also known as the American people) that Democrats forgot who they worked for and they went right down the PATH OF NO with the (smaller in number now) Republican blow hards and in doing so – have quickly found out that the PARTY OF NO is perhaps the only thing in politics that will ever be bipartisan.

Now, I absolutely know that I'm going to get the "it's all irrelevant, it's all a part of the plan for the New World Order" comment, but I'm just not there yet... I still believe in the people in this country and I still believe we can re-brand the word NO into a much more potent word – like... "STOP!" I also believe that both sides of the fence (with the exception of me and my arch Allvoices nemesis) could sit down at a great big table – and start a whole new recipe for the advancement of our great country.

"“I'll give you health care for all citizens – but you need to throw out the coverage for illegals."

"I'll give you open competition for insurance companies but you'll need to throw in coverage for prescriptions."

"I'll give you funding for the masses, but you'll give me tax cuts for benefits paid by employees and employers."

"I'll give you coverage with no pre-existing conditions and you give me a suspension of capital gains for 11 years."

Could we mash it all up? Sure, and maybe we wouldn't come out of the first dinner party with anything but tomatoes on our face – but we'd at least have attempted our first recipe called the TRUE COMBINATION OF IDEAS.

I'm tired of the current status quo of our government. I don't really care for the sensationalism of Wilson OR Grayson and I abhor the hypocrisy of Pelosi and Boehner. Two peas in a pod...first thing we're putting in the stew... their seats.

Term limits should be expanded. They should restrict the number of years a person can serve not only as President but as a member of the House and as a member of the Senate. I'm not sure how many terms a Congress member should be allowed to serve but I do know that it's not working now and experience is not proving to be very effective. Barney Frank sure didn't become such a big blow hard by rolling out great new ideas and he didn't have any issue with the big fat donations coming in from everywhere when he pulled down the trophy called Chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services.

Term limits? Frank's been in office since 1980, and in that time all he managed to perfect was the art of bull shit. He was able to look straight into the eyes of the American people and tell them Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in no financial trouble just years before their collapse. He suggested oversight on the two companies would result in less affordable housing.

I choose Frank as an example – not because he's a Democrat, but because he is from my State where he is always re-elected with ease. He's done the American people no justice and had we had term limits of 15 or even 20 years for House members, he'd have been retired from office in 2000 and at that point – JUST MAYBE – a fresh set of eyes would have seen the inevitable doom forthcoming in the housing market and not have been tainted by corporate donations and lobbyists.

It's a pipe dream. But hey, one can only wonder what 20 years can do to a Congressman's ideas after he OR she has been wine and dined for decades by those horrible, huge corporations the American people place the blame on. Could it be that if we had term limits and true lobbying laws, perhaps these incredibly strong corporation-to-politician ties might not be allowed to become so strong that they suffocate the ethics of our national representatives?

I am not implying in any way that we can come out of this mess with some Utopian ideology but I would like to believe the American people can find their voice in the voter's box in 2010 and again in 2012 and that perhaps it's time to elect a whole new crew.

I do not like knowing that my children's future may be damper than the streets of London on a late March evening. I think it's time for CHANGE and I don't think either party is doing us any good right now by demonstrating the largest showing of partisanship than at any other time in this country. It's dividing our people and placing an ever larger crack right down the center of our Liberty Bell.

Our representatives were never suppose to link arm and arm with corporations and other countries. They were suppose to protect the people of the UNITED STATES. Our representatives were never suppose to become the elite of our country.

Somewhere along the way – our representatives have lost the pride in serving and taken up the gluttony of being served.

That's not change – that's just a voting mistake. We, the PEOPLE should put down the daggers and start demanding accountability and change in the current Congress.

We need stronger and clearer representation so that we can shape a future that we can ALL live with.... now, and 100 years from now.

Maryann