I have an idea for a new reality show for politicians it’s called an Election!  In the game show we get to play the part of Donald Trump and say to those whose performance does not measure up – – YOU’RE FIRED!!!”

I told a friend once that if I could find an honest politician I’d vote for him or her.  I’ve known some that I considered  honest and honorable before being elected but somehow after they were there awhile something changed.  I know some who went into office with little money but don’t know any that have come out the same way.  I’m talking about a lot more than their normal salary would have afforded them during their tenure in office.  I won’t call them crooks or say that their increase in wealth was through graft or corruption but I would like to know where it came from.

Amazingly, we send people to Washington to represent us and they get there and seem to forget us.  Oh, they tell us it is for the good of the country and they are really protecting our interest and if we just understood all the fine points of the bills we would agree with their actions.  I could buy that except most of the bills that go through Congress have so many pages, riders, addendum after addendum and a few choice slabs of pork that if you read the bill and try to ask them about it – – They’re clueless!  So I guess I don’t buy their explanation.  Although I don’t buy their explanation I do get the privilege of paying for their decisions and paying through the nose!

Many if not most people at least attempt to live within their means.  That means you don’t spend more than you take in.  A person can exist for a while with their out-go exceeding their income but not for long.  There is a payday that comes and it is usually painful.  Many people take on extra jobs, cut back (sometimes to the bone) to live within their means but not Congress.  Why do that when you can either borrow or print unlimited amounts of money and then tax, tax, tax to pay for it.  You know it’s bad when there is consideration for taxing ranchers for their cattle’s flatulence.  Hope they don’t do that to humans I probably could not afford it and don’t know what the penalty would be for not being able to hold it.  I can only imagine the cost of the monitoring devices to measure each time, amount and pungency of each depressurization that we have.  Of course, that could be counted in the jobs created group.  I can just hear it now when asked, “What do you do for a living?”  I work for the government sniffing for farts or it would probably be dressed up and called “Flatulence Engineers”. 

I want to borrow a bit of a speech that Davy Crockett gave to Congress:

One day in the House of Representatives, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Mr. Crockett arose:

“Mr. Speaker — I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this house, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

“Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and, if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.

“He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and of course, was lost.

Crockett was right!  Congress has no right to appropriate or misappropriate our money.  It is interesting that the Bible only calls for 10 percent and yet our government wants, in some cases 90 percent of our income.  They spend with no thought of how it will be repaid.  They have no concept of living within a budget.  They have no concept of how the real world lives.  They live in Ivory Towers, vote themselves pay raises, retirement and benefit packages that are not Cadillac the’re beyond Rolls Royce. 

Listen to me, I’m mad and getting madder by the minute!  I can’t afford to fly in chefs from around the country to prepare exotic meals, specialty pizzas or hamburgers I have trouble going to McDonald’s.  I can’t hop on a jet and fly on somebody else’s nickel around the world and call it a fact-finding mission.  I have trouble filling my tank with gas to go to work.  I can’t wear Armani Suits and $1000.00 shoes I do good to wear jeans and sneakers. 

Mr. or Ms. Politician you supposedly work for me.  I’m Donald Trump in this deal so represent me or “You’re Fired”!  I think it’s time that we worked as if it all depends on us to clean house in Washington and pray as if it all depends on God.  We need to interview some new candidates for the positions that are coming open this next election.  That  means local, county, State and Federal.  Since the President is deciding what CEO’s can make why don’t we decide what he and the rest of that bunch get paid based on their performance and our rating system will set their pay. Unfortunately we probably can’t make them give back what they took .  Yet, some of their job performances would demand that they reimburse us!

That’s my rant and I’m sticking to it!