What happened to the old fashion notion of putting your country first and your political career second?  How do we get back to what the founders envisioned as a representative government.  We elect someone to go and represent us as a whole, to make sure that our country runs smoothly and in concert with our constitution, and when they get there they begin looking for ways to get your vote the next time.  If that means letting capitalism die and establishing socialism so be it.  They continue to wield power in their position and they are content to say and do anything to keep it that way.

One of my dreams is to find about two hundred “Mr. Smiths” to go to Washington and clean house.  Can you imagine?  The thing that makes that seem impossible is that we all vote to protect our own personal agenda.  Union members are told to vote for someone if they want to get a raise next year and most of them walk into the voting booth, look for the name given to them by their union, and pull the lever.

Ohio is a prime example of the power and money that unions control.  The duly elected legislature debated and passed a budget bill last fall (Ohio SB5 bill).  The bill touches the “off limits” collective bargaining powers of the unions to negotiate for things other than pay amount.  So those unions had their members hit the streets and collect signatures on a petition to get a referendum vote on the bill this fall.  The money that is projected to be spent on this undertaking alone is more than the 33 billion dollars that was spent on the entire last election!  There is a lot at stake in Ohio.  We either bring the spending under control in our state governments by reasonable cutbacks and changes to the status quo or we see department after department and job after job completely eliminated from a lack of funds.

America is almost at the end of her financial life as we know it.  Many localities are finding out that there is an end in sight and are actually filing bankruptcy.  If they could, the States wouldn’t be far behind.  Compare our government to a family who uses credit cards.  Most of us, when we get to the point where credit card payments are creeping up on the amount of our income, would stop using the card.  In fact, the credit card company would probably make sure that our credit limit would be reduced so we can’t charge any more – and that would be that.  We’d take the necessary steps to cut back on our spending because we’d have no money to continue.

Congress, however, has no credit card company to lower the limit, nor do they have a boss that tells them they can’t have a raise.  What they do is equivalent to us going out and getting another credit card to pay the payments on the first card and continue to buy more “stuff”!   The government doesn’t have to ask for a raise – they just have to raise taxes.  They don’t have to worry about a credit limit – they just raise the debt ceiling!  They don’t have to worry about cash flow – they just print money!

Common sense tells us that this can’t continue.  For years this problem has been kicked down the road for future politicians to face.  They’re afraid to touch any entitlement out there.  All they hear is the special interest voice of each group saying you can and should cut the budget – just not mine!  Well folks, look around – if our elected officials don’t start changing the status quo right now in Washington DC, in our state houses, and in our local Main Street municipal governments, we could very well be the next Greece.