Monday, October 7, 2013

Lawmakers Just Can't Do Their Jobs

It is a shame that we the people of the United States of America, the greatest country in the world, have legislators on both sides of the aisle (and let’s not forget about our president, too) who seem unable to reach an agreement and find a way to ease the pain that many Americans are feeling due to these antics.

They’ll continue to feel them for many months and possibly years to come.

While our government shuts down, federal legislators continue to collect a substantial salary along with their many perks, millions of Americans are out of work and lacking benefits. Many folks who are still trying to recover from the recession or a natural disaster suffer even longer as government assistance is on hold.

This is not a game of cards where one can bluff and see who has the better hand with no regard to the repercussions that will be inflicted upon the American public. The lives of individuals and families are something the government seems to want to gamble with in order to prove who holds the winning hand between them.

Our economy was recovering, however anemically, even with the lower paying jobs that were being created. The housing market seemed like it was stabilizing, too, but these gains may all disappear and we may find ourselves back in another hole. The dollar becomes weaker every day the federal government is closed, the yen and euro become stronger, and the markets drop faster than a rock without a parachute. If we lose our current credit rating, the dollar will be worth nothing and it will take years to recover … if at all.

Congress is hardly the only problem. We have a president who is already planning a trip to Asia, probably bringing his kin along for the taxpayer-financed ride, all at an astronomical cost while our military is looking for food as the commissaries are empty, having to go elsewhere and paying upwards of 30 percent or more to feed their families on or off base.

It seems the priorities of our elected officials are their egos, something that they view as more important than the constituents whom they’re supposed to represent. It is a shame that as much as the American people are getting a bad hand in this shutdown poker game, they will nevertheless elect the same bunch of bureaucrats that engendered this predicament.

Unless we, as voters, clean house to show the world how tired we’ve become of the two major parties’ antics, the games will continue and we will continue on a course destined to negatively redefine our futures and, in the process, permanently changing the face of America.

Joseph Sinagra, Sr.
HELMETTA

http://savejersey.com/2013/10/election-democrat-republican-congress-obama-president-shutdown/#more-113259

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