Storming the Bastille…American style

Votes vice pitchforks are a good way to go. For every congressman we replace, we also replace an average of 14 hired “personal” staffers. For every senator we replace, we also replace an average of 34 hired “personal” staffers. And these federally elected Americans also have committee staffs which are separate, and some even have national party staffs for their national party positions. And so, just on average, our Congress hired around 9500 “personal” staffers in 2000 numbers, all taxpayer paid. Now don’t forget all our federal executive’s hired staffers, and add in the entire federal bureaucracy if you like, though these tend to be more civil service jobs with all their protections. Now go on to our state and local governments to include school boards, and the impact of our votes can be really profound. Less one denigrate how important even school boards are, the Gwinnett County, Georgia school annual budget is 1.4 billion dollars. Gwinnett Country is a suburban county for Atlanta. In 1995 the numbers for our Nation looked like this.

Now and until Moody’s downgrades our borrowing status circa 2017 (as they have forecasted) , we can still storm the Bastille, American style.

While all situations are local, there have been several notable trends now going on for decades that will adversely affect our American future, unless we take begin voting in new “changers” at all levels, local, state, and federal. And the sooner the better.
1) For decades we have addressed our underclass by giving priority to spending money on underlying causes. A much smaller priority has gone to simultaneously locking up the underclass criminals to protect us from them. Like sheep, we have just accepted all this, to include murders of our children by robbers, and having to keep our kids in the yard just for self defense. This has evolved more to be an urban and suburban issue than a rural issue. Either way it is a votable issue to so many. And most have the most altruistic goals, but they also expect programs that produce results. Peeing away our National Wealth with good intentions comes in a poor second. Getting things done is a winner, if we vote for the “winners”.
2) We have enhanced the quality of life of so many local and state government employees by providing lucrative retirement and medical benefits, often now better than many of the taxpayers have. Much of this has been “voodoo” financed by assumptions of forever growing property values and income taxes. When one adds in all the federal promises about social security and medicare, and given all the taxpayer’s guarantees of covering mistakes and even defaults, mostly promoted by our federal politicians, no one, let me say it again, no one, really knows the compiled impacts and implications of all this, though it is ominous. Hints are everywhere. California is the 8th biggest country, financially, and when it is necessary for them to propose releasing criminals on to the streets, some politician and hired staff have given priority to benefits over basic government services, like not being murdered in the course of routine life. In this example, the best way to change things is to use our votes. One can follow out their logical results of what has happened so far and may happen to the rest of us. Protecting the citizens from criminals will win out, and education and basic school curriculums will win out, and defaults of retirements and medical insurance benefits will occur. When we taxpayers have to assume the losses, mostly by working more of each year just to make do, much friction will occur. Many Americans will suffer.
3) Those who expect social security and medicare benefits may be left out in the end. How future voters sort all this out is up to them and their politicians since our present elected politicians have passed on it, as in a chance to make things better for our American future. And ideas of generational and even class warfare are more than academic. For example, the trillions of dollars we have spent on our underclasses might have gone towards money in the bank for our seniors and their social security and medicare benefits. Now many seniors will go cold and hungry and have reduced expectations of life. Will any from the underclasses say thank you for trillions of dollars spent in their behalf over decades by our seniors?
4) Video foreign policy and pundit foreign policy is appalling. That so many respond to this ignores the most basic idea of what is in our National Interest. America is not the World’s policeman. And our National blood and money must only respond to our National Interest. Most pundits would be more impressive if they were to form and join some today’s version of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War circa the 1930’s. Even sending in their kids would help. Start with Darfur. And as long as they want to use our blood and money in their cause, they are on the losing side of American history.
5) Most American workers agree with free trade. The trick word is “free”. For decades the zillions of band aid laws and rules promoted by politicians intended to protect and sometime enhance American workers have worked against us when our politicians, and bureaucrats, use a double standard. Three impacts are obvious on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. One is the lower quality of anything made in China. Since I live on a wildlife farm, plows denting by basic plowing force me to more Canadian and American products that not only don’t dent, they turn the soil. Second, we still use all the environmental rules on the downhill side; those most are obvious and common sense because we would do it anyway. What really hurts is to see local factories in Putnam County that made airbags for cars and candy for Americans and hats for Americans go overseas. Hence the third quality or question, locally of course. Is our federal government, in my words, about basic common sense that includes basic free trade, or are they thinking some other way? Like it or not, this is what people are thinking.

And on to thinking. We still have our vote, thank goodness.