Would you be concerned if your spouse came home and told you he or she contracted for a trip that would cost you an amount equal to your total take home pay for the next three years? Before you can collapse you learn that it is being financed, so you don't have to worry about finding the cash. When you ask where you are going and the other details of the trip you are told that all the details weren't ironed out as yet but you are definitely going to Europe, or maybe Asia. Your next thoughts would be punishable by life imprisonment or perhaps the death penalty so you let them pass.
The audacity of power should make your blood boil. I am particularly upset with the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, and his $8 billion dollar high-speed train to Las Vegas from Southern California. About 35 years ago I was interested in that very idea, being a Southern Californian who likes to visit "Sin City," and started investigating it. I talked with transportation experts and entrepreneurs in both Los Angeles and Las Vegas and learned that it was a multi-million dollar concept that didn't pencil. The projected revenues wouldn't give a meaningful return in relation to the cost. Here is the good news: Congress and the Senate don't care, and we who are going to pay the bill haven't a say in the matter. So the Las Vegas Casino Recovery Act has been passed and soon to be signed into law. What were the odds of that happening?
I would love to run for Congress in my next life, where the first thing I would do is end the idea of consecutive terms. I really could care less how many terms a congressman, senator or president serve as long as they are not consecutive. Why? Because it would take the money out of politics in a way that nobody seems to have thought about. If you can't repeat yourself,
you don't have to raise money during your term in office. You would have time to do such mundane things as reading every bill before you voted on it and not being coerced to vote for something that is just plain wrong so that you can be re-elected. Once your term was over you would have the next term to "show and tell" the electorate what you accomplished in your previous term and how you might even do it better next time. The electorate would have time to research your claims and the results of your votes, and decide if you in fact deserve another term.
Something has got to change and I hope it isn't our way of life. Right now I wouldn't bet either way on the outcome, because what happened last week in our nation's capital could happen again this week or next week if we just become spectators. I have never been a fan of writing my congressman or senators because I know that only their staff reads the letters and replies. But if everyone in this country who feels that passing laws without reading what they are all about starts writing, emailing and calling maybe the office holders would take notice and actually think about what they had done. There isn't any more time for complacency if you want this country to be the "land of the free."
When I reviewed the article, "Where Is The Outrage," I noticed that many people felt it was time for a million man and woman march on Washington to express our point of view. It seems that anything short of that is ignored. Unfortunately most of us cannot afford to take the time off, pay the travel expenses and still keep up with out monthly outflow. So why don't we have this march in every city, in every state of this nation? Why don't we organize a protest against the "arrogance of power" and let those who can't seem to figure out the difference between wrong and right see that we are not going to accept a change in our country from them or anyone else?
Until that can be arranged I am anxiously awaiting the opportunity to see what really is in the stimulus bill. Then I believe we will have a substantive reason to be outraged, and maybe the time of apathy will be over. That is a bet I would take!