Tuesday, June 19, 2007

They Merely Reflect Us

The government is corrupt. Lawmakers are in it for themselves, not their consituents and not their country. Anybody paying the slightest attention over the last few years is either angry enough that they want to clean out the whole lot in Washington and start over, or have just given up.

The illegal immigration issue is a great case in point. A perfect storm has put both political parties on the wrong side of this issue for different reasons. Dems love illegals and want to make them citizens as quickly as possible because they mostly vote for Dems. Republicans are beholden to corporate donors who also love illegals because they can hire them at $5 an hour. So they team up on a bill that gives immediate legal status to everybody here illegally, then makes a token effort at beefing up border patrols.

The last time they passed a bill like this, it gave legal status to a huge number of illegals and promised to shore up border and employer enforcement. Then they conveniently forgot about the enforcement part. They passed a bill just over a year ago to build a 700-mile border fence. It's not built, and there seems to be no intention to build it.

A huge majority of people, well over 70% of the citizenry, is outraged. But Congress and the President don't care. They think they can put one over on all of us and get away with it. Maybe they can - we'll soon find out.

Look at any other issue. Healthcare, Social Security, Iraq and the broader Terror War, Trade. On every single issue, you find both political parties wanting to do what's best for those who stuff their campaign chests rather than what makes sense for the country as a whole.

Suppose we elected a congressman from our area who is honest and smart and wants to do the right thing for all of us. He goes to Washington and his first reality check happens when a bill comes up that's being pushed by his party leadership. He knows it's a bad bill, and knows it was designed to satisfy a major donor to the campaigns of his party's leaders. This new congressman is told, "You better vote for this bill, or you can kiss anything you want for your district goodbye."

What will he do?

What will we do?

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