545 People

[Lesbest]

545 People
By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, The Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and 9 supreme court justices- 545 human beings out of the 300 million- are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress.

In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason, They have no legal authority.

They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing.

I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con reguardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall.

No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the president for creating deficits.

The president can only propose a budget.

He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.

Who is the speaker of the House?

She is the leader of the majority party.

She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want.

If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto, if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted--by present facts-- of incompetence and irresponsibility.

I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

It the Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ.

If they do not recieve social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose job they can abolish, lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject, to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses-provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up the mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel



Sorry for the long post, but what do you think?
Les



[/i]

[Steve_Cox]

Les,
Charlie Reese seems to be a pretty good guy. Here's another one of his older editorials from 2006 that will probably ruffle a few feathers.

Slipped His Moorings

by Charley Reese


The two most dangerous leaders in the world are George W. Bush and North Korea's Kim Jong Il. The lights seem to be out upstairs in both men. Neither man can see the world as it really exists.

I wish to stress that. It's not a question of having a difference of opinion. Rational people can easily disagree on what is the right policy. When people see things that are not there, however, reasoning and debate are useless. It's like a demented person who believes someone is hiding in the trunk of the car. No amount of explanation will convince that person otherwise.

For the president to compare Osama bin Laden, a crank with maybe a thousand followers scattered around the globe, with Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin is preposterous, absurd and even laughable. To suggest bin Laden could take over Iraq is even more so. We have 140,000 troops, a Navy and an Air Force, and we can't "take over" Iraq. How in the name of heaven could bin Laden do it with no soldiers at all? He is, after all, a Sunni with only a small following among Sunnis, and the majority in Iraq is Shiite.

The human being is controlled by the mind. We can't even pick up a pencil or scratch our ear without the brain first instructing the body to do so. The mind is our means of survival, and we survive by correctly identifying reality. Often when we fail to correctly identify reality, it kills us, as with the person who believes he can beat the train through the crossing.

But not only is this more serious than a difference of opinion, it is more serious than lying. Rational people can lie. The used-car salesman doesn't really believe that the pickup truck with a squirrel tail on the antenna and Styrofoam dice hanging from the rearview mirror was previously owned by a retired kindergarten teacher. He just hopes you're stupid enough to believe it.

Politicians lie all the time, because they want to plant a distorted view of reality in your mind, lest you discover the truth about how worthless they are. I used to say the only difference between Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter was that when Nixon lied, he knew he was lying. Carter seemed to believe his own lies.

Let's not play around. Am I saying the president is crazy? No, not in the clinical sense. But, if he believes that bin Laden, Hitler, Stalin and Lenin are comparable, if he truly believes he is leading the free world in the great ideological war of the 21st century, then he has cut his anchor chain and drifted off into the Sea of Delusion.

Karl Menninger, one of the most sensible psychiatrists, defined sanity as staying in touch with reality, but he pointed out that all people depart from reality on occasion. We do it when we dream, we do it when we fantasize, we do it when we become enraged, and we do it when we rationalize.

The president, I believe, is desperate to be what he knows he is not – a great man. He has fantasized that he is a second Winston Churchill leading the forces of democracy in a great crusade against the forces of darkness. The only trouble is, there is nobody out there in the dark.

Sure, bin Laden and his small band of followers hate our guts. So what? They are half a drop in the bucket of 6 billion people. Bush has so distorted his view of reality, he does not seem to realize that most of our "allies" in the Middle East are dictators, and the people he calls terrorists – Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah – participated in free elections.

Even his so-called war on terror is phony. You can't wage a war against a tactic. Most of the groups he labels as terrorists are local groups with local grievances and don't think twice about us.

We should remember the warning of Ayn Rand: "We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality."

September 9, 2006

Charley Reese [send him mail] has been a journalist for 49 years.

[Miriam C.]

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up the mess!

Ugh 545 people voted to not let you vote all of them at a time. How smart were they!

[Alphacarina]

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up the mess!

Most of them maybe . . . . but not all of them - I know one congressman who isn't at all like the others. Gene Taylor of the 5th district of Mississippi

The division and the long downward spiral began with Newt Gingrich in 1994 when the Republicans took over the house - 'Newt's Law' required all Republican congressmen to vote in a block, for whatever the Republican position was on any given issue, or risk losing their seats on any committee of any meaning . . . . . and they all caved - Nobody dared reach across the isle to do what was good for the country anymore

Our government hasn't worked a lick since

Don

[Claw]

545 People
By Charlie Reese

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up the mess!


[/i]

Then what?

I think Mr Reese has forgotten the reality that even if what he says is true our system has provided more opportunity for more people than any other.