Let me start of by saying that I am sick and tired of politicians saying that they should run the American Government like a business. This is exactly what House Speaker John Boehner said in his speech tonight. He says that he ran a small business in Ohio and then compared that to the United States Government. I don't know what kind of business you ran Mr. Speaker, but if you ran that business like you are trying to run the government, it is no wonder you now have a different job!
The United States Government IS NOT a business and it can't be treated as such! The job of the Government is to protect and provide services for its citizens. There is no Board of Directors and no shareholders. For Speaker Boehner, the Governor of my state, Rick Scott or anyone to think the government is a business is A FOOL!
A business needs to make a profit to succeed. Your salary and multimillion dollar campaign contributions show that YOU ARE MAKING A PROFIT, Mr. Speaker. What profit is the American Taxpayer making? In your comparison of the U. S. Government to a business, shouldn't ALL AMERICAN TAXPAYERS BE MAKING AN EQUAL PROFIT? As American Citizens, we would be the share holders. Where are our shareholder checks?
Let me provide a little background of myself. When I was younger, I was a Republican. I supported President Gerald Ford when he ran for President. Although I wasn't happy that he pardoned President Richard Nixon, I agreed with his reasoning. Now, upon reflection, many leaders of both major political parties agree that it was the right thing to do. At some point, I became disappointed and dissatisfied with the Republican Party as they began to care only about the Wealthiest of American's and began to shred through the U. S. Consitution to do whatever they wanted to do. I became an Independent. I was impressed with Senator Barack Obama when he addressed the Democratic Convention in 2004. (I only had tuned in to see Ron Reagan, Jr. speak.) I was telling people back then, that Barack Obama was going to be our next President. I supported him and still believe that he is trying to lead the country in the right direction.
Despite your best effort to ignore it, Mr. Speaker, the economy is starting to improve. To me, when I see more small businesses starting to open up, I believe that those people along with others agree that things are starting to look up. A new Super Wal-Mart opened up in St. Petersburg, Florida last week. A new furniture chain store opened it's doors in Clearwater, Florida. These large chain stores and small independent stores are bringing hundreds of new jobs to this area. Slowly, things are starting to get better. The Stimulus Package has helped to allow much needed road and bridge repair and expansion to finally get started. This construction has provided jobs for thousands of workers.
However, like most American's, I am getting sick and tired of the endless bickering in Congress with nothing getting accomplished. So I have thought of a few things that we should do to help correct the problem.
Let's start at the top. The Presidency should be limited to one six year term. Most people will agree that any President spends their first term trying to get re-elected to their second term. Let's end this now. Give the Office holder one six year term so that they can focus on what is best for the nation and how they, personally tried to get it done.
Next, let's have some major campaign reform. We, the people of the World, have the advantages of a 24 hour news cycle for both television and the Internet. Eliminate the need to spend hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars running for a political office. Let each candidate create their own website, post their position papers on it and make themselves available to answer questions from the American People and post them online. Let the Candidates debate openly on the Internet and on the television. Allow The League of Women Voters, who have sponsored the Presidential Debates in the past, to come up with a debate format that is free of demands of any individual, political party or special interest. Let individual American Citizens decide who gets elected for office, not special interest groups. The Internet websites of the candidates should be set up by funding by the Government and have NO ADVERTISERS OR SPONSORS. The Candidate's Website and The League of Women Voters Public Debates should be the only resources that the candidates should be given. By doing this, every American, whether rich or poor, could have a real shot at getting elected to a public office.
Make the running of the Government more transparent! Make every office holder publically responsible to show their exact government salaries and the salaries of each staff member and their office budgets (which should be distributed equally among all members of each branch of Congress) be posted on their internet site. There should be a law in place forbidding any government official to receive ANY TYPE of gift while running for and while in office. Let Congressional Representatives and Senators go back to serving the American Public and NOT special interests. As a result, people who run for office will hopefully do so with the intent to serve the People and not with the intent to get rich(er).
Get to work setting up a tax system that is fair for all of our individual and business citizens. It isn't right for large corporations to pay little or no taxes, cut jobs and close or move their operations out of the country while the Corporate C.E.O.'s get six and seven figure yearly bonuses!
While these ideas may seem to simplistic at first, there is no reason why this can not be accomplished. Image how much money all branches of government will save by not having to provide funding for the current lavish campaigns. Put those saving toward the deficit. I think all of us would be suprised at just how much money we are talking about.
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