Elections Need to Matter Before the #Shutdown

It is a shame that we the people of the United States of America, the greatest country in the world, has 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 will 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 will now have to suffer even longer as government assistance remains 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% 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.

The Sequester’s True Cost

“Instead of reducing our deficits with a scalpel to get rid of programs we don’t need but keep vital investments that we do – you know, this same group has kept in place this meat cleaver called the sequester that is just slashing all kinds of important investments in education and research and our military.”  ~  President Barack Obama blaming Republican’s for the sequester

When the sequester began, our President flew to 32 destinations aboard Air Force One, and only seven of the 32 destinations were directly related to politics.

It’s a pattern worth revising as politicians debate a government shutdown.

The flight from Andrews Air Force Base to Chattanooga, TN and back cost taxpayers $449,375 just so Obama could give a speech blaming the Republicans for it.

A flight Obama took on March 15th to give a speech on energy policy and again on May 29th for a Democratic party fundraiser cost $254,526 for a one way, one hour and twenty-five minute-long. A two-hour flight from Andrews Air Force Base to Miami on March 29th to give a speech on the topic of infrastructure was $359,500.

The government shutdown and the amount of money saved by canceling public tours of the White House was less than the cost of one of Obama’s vacations.

The Obama administration blamed the halting of the White House tours on the spending reductions mandated by sequestration and saved about $74,000 per week or close to $2 million over the year.

What you haven’t likely heard is the fact that those savings were roughly half the cost of Obama’s Christmas vacation to Hawaii last year. Documented by the ‘Hawaii Reporter,’ it was estimated the total cost of that trip was “at least $4 million,” the true cost could be nearly five times that. It does not include the cost of flying advance teams out to Hawaii and the separate Michelle flights she took in 2010 and 2011, with Obama catching up later. Estimates of the total cost for the four Hawaii vacations the Obama’s have taken during Christmastime 2009-2012 cost taxpayers in excess of $20 million.

Obama had returned from Hawaii to complete a deal on the Fiscal Cliff and then jetted back to Honolulu, adding an additional $3.24 million to the tab, bringing the cost of the 2012-1013 vacation to well over $7 million.

In 2011, Obama spent eleven days at a $50,000-per-week beachfront rental property with the cost of that trip to taxpayers reaching into the “millions.”

Obama’s golf outing with Tiger Woods cost the taxpayers “over a million dollars,” enough money to save 341 federal workers from a furlough.

The sequestration forced the Secret Service to cut $84 million from its budget.

The Obama’s African tour was estimated to have cost $100 million . . . $100 million that would fund 1,351 weeks or 26 years of White House tours.

During the months of the sequester, Obama took 10 flights aboard Air Force One during June, the most of any month. He took four trips in the months of March, April and August and five trips in the months of May and July. Travel that included trips through the Middle East, Central America, Europe and Africa.

A study by the National Taxpayers Union concluded “[w]ith four trips abroad over 18 days through the first six months of 2013, Obama is on pace to set the record for the most travel in a fifth year in office, if that precedent continues, he will be among the most-traveled U.S. chief executives in history by the time he leaves office.”

Millions of hardworking Americans are looking for jobs, struggling to pay their mortgages and make ends meet, all while Obama claims to care about the middle class as they continue to foot the bill.