I've been kinda quiet for the last several weeks. Nothing has stirred my writing juices...until yesterday.
I don't know if you saw it but there was an article in the papers recently about $16 cupcakes for a Department of Justice conference. I didn't hear the newscast but apparently Fox News picked up on it until the mistake was corrected. It was $16 per person and that included several other things than just cupcakes for each person. That gave my left wing liberal friends an opportunity to blast the Republicans and Fox News, et al for their coverage of it. That got my juices to flowing.
First off, its not too far fetched to think of $16 cupcakes for the government. It's common to pay $20 a dozen or $3.25 each for cupcakes in DC. After reading the GAO Guide on Estimating it's not uncommon in the government to blow a budget of any kind by billions. Poor estimating. Couldn't have done that for very long when I was working in home building. And our government can't afford to do it for very much longer.
So the point is not whether the government can do things better, watch their money more closely and stop expecting that taxing the wage earners will help them with their addiction for spending. The point is its not whether we have a Republican or Democratic government in place. It happens on both watches.
I am a registered...does it really matter? I have right wing conservative friends and relatives who live by Fox News, Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck. I have left wing liberal tree hugger friends and relatives who listen to NPR, believe in global warming and wouldn't think of using a plastic bag to bring their groceries home. It really doesn't matter.
What lights my fire is all the postings on FB and other emails that devote time to blasting the other side as if that will solve the problem. Folks...that is a waste of time and a pseudo appearance of doing something that matters. Let's make things straight. None of the politicians of either party can get the job done. They're spending all their energy shooting at each other rather than addressing the problems that need cures.
If case you have forgotten, regardless of your favorite news media, political persuasion or punching bag, we are all Americans, citizens of the same country. When the government spends ridiculous amounts of money to send to a dictator who pockets it instead of helping his countrymen, when the Defense Department overshoots their budget for a new weapons system by billions, when unscrupulous doctors bill Medicare for unfounded charges in the millions of dollars, they are wasting OUR money. It is the tax dollars that WE working persons have sent to our government.
They have a fiduciary responsibility to us to spend it wisely and to care for those who deserve to have the help of all the rest of us. It is not the Republicans' money or the Democrats' money. It is OUR money. When it is spent unwisely, just plain wasted or fraudulently used they are wasting money that you and I and thousands of other hard working Americans gave to them for safekeeping.
By the way, Rick Perry was right. The Social Security system is a Ponzi scheme not a guaranteed investment that we are sure to reap the benefits of. By the way, Hillary Clinton was right. It takes a village to raise a child and no government, Christian school or educational system is going to be able to do that for us.
We must let our voices be heard...by both parties and all aspects of government. We as tax payers need to become angry about the whole mess and ask for accountability in getting the government straightened out. It is going to take bold leadership--and it doesn't matter which party it comes from--to help us change the culture of taxing and spending and wasting precious resources on things that don't work. And the blame game doesn't work either.
We need to become people of action. I'm now a government employee. I'm a long way from the workings of our legislature except they fund the department I am a part of. What can I do? I can push back to those other employees I am working with when they ask me to spend unnecessary money on a project. I can personally not walk up to the end of the budget year trough and order supplies that I don't need. I can be conservative in my spending when I am on government paid travel.
What can you do? Write your Congressmen and Senators, regardless of your party affiliation and theirs, and demand that they use fiscal responsibility in their spending. We can waste money on a social welfare program just as quickly as we can waste it on a weapons system. Write the President and tell him you want to stop the addiction the government has to money. And most important of all, stop wasting time criticizing the other "side" for their politics. It's OUR government, yours and mine. It's OUR money. It's OUR future and the future of our children. Take action that really matters.
