Just so we’re clear, before anyone begins to think that a new calendar page is an optimistic signal of potentially good things to come, the thoroughly dysfunctional body, now known as the 113th Congress of the United States of America, began 2013 by pretending to do good work in averting the reported evils of sailing off the fiscal cliff. Although the media reported to sea-sickening repetition, the magnanimous gesture of both houses taking responsibility for keeping most of our taxes from increasing, hardly anyone reported on the lobbied add-ons that legislators just couldn’t keep themselves from including:
• Millions in tax incentives for the building and enhancement of auto-racing venues
• Tax breaks for movie producers, (who recently posted record-breaking profits for 2012)
• Funding for algae-based fuel research, (a possibly important alternative energy option…neither fiscal nor cliff-like)
Partisan politics aside, top to bottom, very little about our government does what it is supposed to do, for the reasons it’s supposed to do it or in any manner that would be considered cost effective or efficient by even the least demanding standard. The members of Congress, with very few exceptions, are perpetually campaigning, seeking contributions and returning favors based on creating a perception of worthy electability to their constituents. This process requires sucking up to the thousands of special-interest lobbyists who offer money and influence for the inclusion of programs large and small within the body of specific and unrelated legislation. (I would point out that my disgust with our ‘Pork-loving’ lawmakers may seem to align me incongruously with the irrepressible John McCain, if it were not for the fact that John is a classic pork-bashing hypocrite whose objections stop short of his own special interests). It is not simplistic to say that our fiscal woes are all wrapped up in this neat little greed package. It has kept us from properly and responsibly regulating banking, health care and wasteful military expenditure to a cost that would eliminate our demonized debt many times over, and in the process has spawned a misguided conservative attitude that we must strike at the heart of education and social welfare to balance our budget. I apologize for sounding elitist, but anyone who accepts this as a path to our future has either drunk some tainted KoolAid®, or is simply a product of our horribly deficient public school system.
In John Beohner’s welcoming speech to the new House of Representatives, he said, (between sobs and tears), “We aren’t sent here to be something…we’re sent here to do something.” If the something they’re sent to do continues to be pressing for individual pet projects or projects pressured by the insurance lobby or the banking lobby or the military-industrial lobby or the gun lobby we are all lost. Before tax reform or spending reform, we need Congressional reform.
Many years ago I decided that I would no longer sign any contract that uses the words “whereas” or “hereinafter”, or that couldn’t describe the “I’ll do this”, “You’ll do that” in a page or page and a half. If Congress were held to this standard, they could perhaps get some meaningful work done.
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Too-Oh-12 (correction)
“Killing Me Softly” was Norman Gimbel’s lyric
Not Hal David’s, as I said
I brain-farted, Norman, and I loved “Happy Days”
And I’m happy, as well, you’re not dead