Category Archives: Senate

How an Outhouse Explains Politicians Relationship to Voters

Posted on by
Share:
Reply

Outhouses are part of a cultural history of the United States.  These little buildings used as a toilet were around a long time before indoor plumbing.  Today, they may seem backward and dirty because indoor bathrooms are more sanitary and therefore safer than outhouses.  So, why does this picture explain politicians’ relationship to their constituents?  There is a notion out there that politics are dirty.  The other one is that voters feel like their elected officials scorn them. Why do voters feel this way?

We’ve Been Dumped On!

There is a major divide in this country between the ruling class and the electorate.  This is the same for both Democrats and Republicans because both parties are out of touch with the needs of the American people.   Compared to the average American, the Democrats are too far to the left and Republicans too far to the right. That is one of the problems that most Americans are having with elected officials.[1]

If Voting Changed Anything They Would Make It Illegal

It seems that voting is pretty much useless at this point in time.  Politics in Washington has become partisan in such a way that has not been seen for a few generations at least.  When anything comes before Congress right now, like a jobs bill or a new welfare bill, they are tabling the legislation until after the presidential election this year.  But, some legislators in Congress are hell-bent on getting President Obama out of the White House or keeping Obama in the White House and keeping their job.  They have no consideration for the average American citizen.  Then, where there are a few representatives or senators that try to get something done, their ideas are smothered.  It is like building a fire: if the fire doesn’t get enough oxygen, it dies out.  So, for some of these representatives and senators, they are either not getting enough oxygen or they are trying to smother the flame.  I applaud those elected officials that are willing to actually do something and I feel sorry that their ideas are not getting through due to some bull-headed, stubborn people that are their coworkers.

Why Do They Disrespect Us So Much?

The question really becomes how and why did this divide happen.  Campaign finance is the answer.  Follow my reasoning here for a bit. Campaigns are becoming more and more expensive to wage.  From traveling to printing costs the prices keep going higher.  Now with current campaign finance laws, major corporations are able to create PACs (Political Action Committee) which can raise money and they can spend that money however they want.  Let’s say that a certain PAC wants a certain candidate in office.  They can literally spend a fortune to get their candidate elected.  This has left the old days of dropping money into a hat at a political rally or sending a check to a candidate obsolete.  Now, elected officials serve for their PAC donors and not the American people.  Until this divide is closed between electorate and elected officials this rupture will only increase.  This discord between the ruling class and the governed needs to stop and scars need to heal.  The American government is by and for the people, not by and for the PAC with the most money.  Let’s start putting these outhouses side by side instead of having politicians dumping on top of the citizens.

[1] I would like to mention here that this is national politics only.  I have not been doing as much reading and research on local and state level politics.  This is from what I have been seeing and reading about the national level.  I am also not talking about every elected national official either, just mainly the ones that you hear about on the news making a lot of noise.

Hypocrisy is in Session: A Look at Recent Comments Made by Sen. Jeff Sessions

Posted on by
Share:
Reply

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) recently said something that I find outlandish.  Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)has proposed restoring $4.5 billion in aid for the hungry and the poor in the United States that a Senate farm bill is proposing to cut.  In response, Sessions states:

“It’s precisely this kind of thinking that has bled our treasury of money that we need to pay for the demands that this country has. I also think it’s a moral issue,” Sessions said. “Is our national goal to place as many people on welfare, food stamp support, as we can possibly put on that program? Is that our goal? Is that a moral vision for the United States of America, just to see how many people we can place in a situation where they’re dependent on the federal government for their food? I just ask that. I think we should wrestle with that question” (1).

You got to be kidding me, right?

Sen. Sessions is from the Republican Party and many people believe that is the party that is the most religious and follows the Bible.  Then, why don’t they follow what Jesus said about taking care of the poor and feeding the hungry?  It seems some of our elected officials forget that they may be “wicked” because they forget the teachings of the man they worship. How can they claim to be Christians and also say it is immoral to help the poor?  How can Sen. Sessions claim on his Senate website that he has “a belief in God” and thinking helping the poor.

In Matthew 25, Jesus gives a parable on the Last Judgment.  He says that the first question to be asked on Judgment Day is “did you feed the hungry and give a drink to the thirsty?”  I just don’t get how some people can claim to believe in a god that teaches these things and not adhere to what he says.

A Little Background

There were some people that hated Jesus.  They were the ones responsible for his death.  Those people were Pharisees.  They were the rich religious leaders who knew everything about everything and thought that Jesus was this crazy dude offering free healthcare, free help to the poor and he loved and accepted you no matter what you have done. The Pharisees believed he was a threat to their power and influence.

Let’s fast forward 2,000 years.  We have modern day Pharisees in Congress.  They seem to dislike anything that helps the poor or the sick.  They call it a “moral issue” when it comes to the SNAP (formerly food stamps), or universal healthcare or any help to lower student loan debt.

These leaders are out of touch.  I’m not saying that every person in Congress is this way but I am saying there are a few.  Let’s look at this number.  Senator Sessions makes around $174,000 a year.  Members of Congress also receive a cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) every year unless Congress votes it down (2).  The last time that the COLA raise was instituted was 2009 and the raise went from $169,300 to the current rate (3).  Let’s not forget that they also get the best free health insurance and retirement benefits available.

I really doubt that Sessions was in a financial bind before becoming a Senator.  I wonder how a man who makes this much money a year can honestly say that it is a moral issue to help the poor.  We have a moral obligation to help the poor.  Don’t go throwing the Bible in my face if you are not going to do what it says.

Reference List

1)      Jeff Sessions Argues Food Stamps Increase Not Moral, Mocks Kirsten Gillibrand. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/13/jeff-sessions-food-stamps-kirsten-gillibrand_n_1595006.html

2)      Salaries and Benefits of US Congress Members. http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/congresspay.htm

3)      Try Automatic COLA, the anti-incumbency drink. http://meridianstar.com/columns/x935814775/Try-Automatic-COLA-the-anti-incumbency-drink

 

Baseball is Normal, Taxes are Not: The 2012 Tax Debate.

Posted on by
Share:
Reply

At a conference for small business owners in Kentucky, I recently had to opportunity to hear the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., give a few of his thoughts about what was going on in Washington, D.C. McConnell said “the only thing normal going on in Washington is baseball.”  That is probably the one subject that I can say here and now that I agree with the Senator on.  The Washington Nationals are having a really good season so far: they’re on top of the NL East and playing good baseball.

There are some other things more important than baseball that Senator McConnell mentioned that needs to be considered by Political Sigh.  McConnell argued that letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire would be devastating because that would be replaced by a plan by President Obama in which everyone who makes over $250,000 would get a tax increase.  The Senator said that this plan does not include the really large corporations that are classified as C corporations.  Basically what this means is that other forms of business, sole proprietorship, S corporations and LLCs, do not pay corporate tax to begin with, so they will not be getting any kind of tax break that the C corporations will be getting under Obama’s plan.

The thing about small businesses, according to McConnell, is that they employee more people than any other forms of business. So, according to Obama’s plan, more people will get hurt than under the Bush-era tax cuts. As a small business owner myself, I can be persuaded to believe this is not fair.  The only way to figure out which tax plan is fair is to get to the point.

So I contacted Senator McConnell’s office to get an interview, via email, with him. He agreed to the interview:

PS: Senator, if Obama is raising taxes on small businesses and anyone else making over $250,000, then why are C corporations the only ones that are not going to be affected by this proposed tax increase?

MM: President Obama has proposed raising the individual tax rates on taxpayers making more than $200,000 or $250,000 if they are married.  This group includes nearly 750,000 small businesses, including sole proprietorships, s-corporations, partnerships and other businesses who pay taxes at the individual rate. These businesses employ up to a quarter of the nation’s workforce. Unlike these businesses, C-corporations pay two level of taxes – once at the corporate level and once when it is distributed to shareholders. President Obama has not proposed raising the tax rate on C-corporations, although he has proposed raising capital gains and dividend taxes – this is a tax increase that will affect millions of American investors and seniors living on a fixed income.

PS: Would you be in favor of increasing the taxes if every corporation was taxed?

MM: Our nation’s record deficit wasn’t created because taxes are too low; our deficit was created because Washington is spending too much. I don’t support raising anyone’s taxes just so Washington has more taxpayer money to throw away on wasteful, ill-conceived investments like Solyndra. There is  bipartisan agreement that we should reform our corporate tax system, which features the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. To make U.S. businesses more competitive and help create jobs here in America, we need to be lowering corporate tax rates, not raising them.

PS: Instead of raising taxes, is there anything else that could be done, short of cutting programs?  If programs were cut, which would be first on the list?

MM: The best way to get more revenue is to incentivize economic growth instead of raising taxes. Getting the economy moving again will create jobs, which will create more taxpayers, which will create more revenue, and provide for a robust and growing private sector.  As we work to create a more stable environment for job creators, we also need to stay vigilant about identifying wasteful government spending.

______

After getting some additional comments from Senator McConnell, I reached out to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to get a response.  His office never responded to my request.  I then contacted the Democratic Policy and Communications Center (DPCC) to attempt to get a response from anyone in the Senate.  No response. At that point, the White House was the only place left to contact. I called and asked for the Press Office to get talking notes that I’m sure President Obama has given to the press.  I was told that since I was not regular press,  I should refer to the White House website.  This is what the site says:

“The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 extends middle class tax cuts to prevent a typical working family from losing an average of $40 per paycheck, enabling them to keep about $1,000 of their hard-earned money in 2012.  The law also:

  • Extends unemployment insurance so that millions of Americans who are looking for work will still be able to depend on the vital lifeline of unemployment insurance.
  • Includes important reforms that the President proposed in the American Jobs Act to help discourage businesses from laying off workers and to connect workers with jobs.
  • Includes a critical element in the plan the President outlined in the State of the Union to out-innovate the rest of the world by unleashing mobile broadband, investing in innovation, and building a nationwide public safety network.   It will mean a stronger economy and hundreds of thousands of new jobs” (1).

Obama’s plan, as described above, is throwing out touchy feely concepts like “stronger economy” and “hundreds of thousands of new jobs.”  What will this bill actually do for me?  What about my small business?  Those I do not really know.

What this really boils down to is that both parties want to help people, but they have different ways to go about it.  Really, both parties are calling for tax cuts.  That’s good though, right?  Well, at some point the belt cannot be pulled any tighter.  Taxes will have to be raised.  That is just going to be part of it.  McConnell is right that if more companies can hire more people, then the government will get more money. Obama is right that if people have an extra $1000 a year they will probably spend it, which will boost the economy.  But what are we going to do right now?  That is what I wanted to ask the Democrats in the Senate.  I guess we won’t know until it is too late and the American people get left out in the cold.

Reference List

1)      Taxes: Progress. http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/taxes