A government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich

I can’t get over why citizens continue to send representatives, who have created the mess we have, back to Washington.

Washington DC is the richest city in the United States, and primarily rich on our tax dollars. One of every 12 people in DC is a lawyer. Fourty-two percent of House members become lobbyists and 50 percent of our Senate members become lobbyists after leaving office. Virtually every bill that is passed and becomes law is packed with benefits for special interests, including tax loopholes.

ObamaCare could have been a simple health bill without insurance companies, but the fat-cat insurance lobby would have none of that.

For the past 30 years the income and wealth of the top 1 percent has soared while the middle class has all but been eliminated. Washington DC is corrupt, primarily representing the rich and powerful while ignoring, and even trying to make the middle-class, more in need.

I am not against people getting rich. More power to them so long as it is done fairly and without corruption. But I am against the rich trying to take away Social Security benefits, which we actually paid for, and I am against them taking away food stamps for the poor who cannot find jobs, while the rich continue to pay less than their fair share of the taxes.

What they can’t do in DC they sometimes do in some state houses. For example, recently in South Carolina, the state house increased the sales taxes on its citizens from 5-1/2 percent to 8 percent, while decreasing the income tax on the millionaires by an average of $10,000. To add insult to injury, some of the red states are disinfranchising the poor and disadvantaged from voting by passing voter ID laws, which are so restrictive that many in the lower economic class cannot vote, especially when financial outlays are required to get the voter IDs.

Why do many of our citizens continue to send representatives to Washington who enable the rich to become even richer while shooting themselves in their own feet? Most likely the reason is because they have been programmed.

Two of the outstanding programmers for the rich are O’Reilly and Hannity on Fox News. Both of them spew out hate messages, and like Hitler and Stalin, they know if they tell the same lies long enough many people will believe them. They have succeeded in making Obama the monster, in addition to stirring up a lot of racial hate. Instead of helping society, they keep us fighting among ourselves while rich continue to leave us going without.

All across our great land our infrastructure is crumbling down. Highways, bridges, and sewers which were built to last 50 years need to be replaced. Commerce needs these replacements just to efficiently move our goods, but the rich in Washington won’t allow that to happen because most likely it would require them to pay a little more in taxes, plus, the rebuilding would create many jobs. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner also can’t let this happen because it would make Obama look good. The hell with what our nation needs, they advocate, “... at all costs we must make Obama look bad.” One thing is absolutely certain — we are going to have to rebuild our infrastructure, and the longer we postpone it the more costly it will become.

For the citizens, this issue should not be a partisan issue. Poor Republicans are getting ripped off just as much as poor Democrats. There are some things that could be done that would benefit Republicans and Democrats alike. We could have term limits for House and Senate members. We could require former House and Senate members to wait 10 years after leaving office before they could become lobbyists. We could make it unlawful for those who receive government contracts to contribute to political campaigns. There are a number of things we could do to clean up the mess in Washington, but before we have that done we need to get rid of our own ignorance and prejudices. We need to think for ourselves without the propaganda of such individuals like Hannity and O’Reilly.