"So long as I’m Commander-in-Chief, we will sustain the strongest military the world has ever known. When you take off the uniform, we will serve you as well as you’ve served us – because no one who fights for this country should have to fight for a job, or a roof over their head, or the care that they need when they come home.” Barack Obama, 2012 Democratic National Convention
May 21, 2014
By: Linda Case Gibbons
Suppose we just stopped? All of it.
The campaign fund- raising. Kissing babies. Traveling to all 50 states to stump for election.
What’s it for?
Everyone who does it hates it. And everyone who sees them do it hates it.
Why do it?
The TV campaign ads which cost too much and no one wants to see? The debates with biased moderators? Politicians judging pie-making contests?
Talking points?
Suppose we said "Stay home and do your job, Mr. Congressmen, Mr. President. Stay home. Save your money, and most importantly, save ours.”
Suppose the people whose salaries we pay, actually worked? Stayed in their offices and did their jobs.
No fund raising, no distractions. Just work.
Then with the distractions gone we would be able to see who does a good job and who is inadequate. Then we could see who should be fired and fire them.
There are a lot of problems that could have been averted if this president had stayed in his office and done his job.
There are a lot of problems that could have been averted if Congress had read the bills before they passed them.
Like Obamacare.
Suppose we said, "Stop.” The spin. The lies. The problems that keep turning into scandals.
Suppose we told them we’ve had enough? Do your job or hit the road.
Suppose instead of the president threatening to use his "pen and phone” to bypass Congress by issuing executive orders, he used them to organize his work.
Suppose he sat down and grabbed a big piece of paper and wrote all the federal agencies on it, with the names of who headed up those agencies. With their phone numbers.
The government is big and there are a lot of agencies, but suppose he concentrated on just the Cabinet? There are only fifteen of them.
Those Cabinet heads could get exhaustive reports from "their people,” complete reports, accurate and up-to-date, synopses of everything going on in their agencies and then go back to the president and keep him in the loop.
He’d know it all. No surprises. No need for his press secretary to say "the president didn’t know."
Suppose the president had daily briefings from "his people,” the ones taxpayers pay to do that instead of his learning about problems in his administration from the media, "just like the rest of us?”
It’s a job. For Congressmen and the president. People do it every day in this country. It’s called going to work each day, reading your mail each day and doing the job. Each day.
But let’s say the media is better at it, better than the talking points prepared by the FBI and the CIA and the NSA with the "best information available at the time.”
Let’s say none of these agencies ever had a leg up on information that they were supposed to have, like the Boston bombing or what happened in real time during the attack in Benghazi.
If that’s true, maybe it’s time someone should be fired.
Let’s say the president’s chief legal counsel didn’t know, about anything. What do we need that person for?
And suppose the IRS did its due diligence, its job? Maybe then 5,100 dead people wouldn’t have received $12 million in fraudulent tax refunds.
As this administration often says, this is "unacceptable.” And it is. Just as it would be in the private sector.
They fire people who don’t do their jobs in the private sector. If those people lie, if they cover up misdeeds, they go to jail.
The real problem? Money. Our country owes too much of it, and politicians sell their souls for it, so much so, they cannot do their jobs.
Wipe out campaign funding then our elected officials won’t owe the unions, the teachers, the environmentalists any payback and they will be free to do their jobs.
If they want to run for office, let them pay their own freight, no campaign contributions. No super pacs.
And term limits. It’s public service, not a lifetime career.
It’ll keep them honest.
And trim governmental costs everywhere.
More time on the job, less time on the links. Prepping for the 2012 debate in the White House instead of flying to Vegas.
Fewer trips by the First Family. Jet fuel and entourages cost money, but in an economy where more are out of work than working, taking a costly vacation is in bad taste. FLOTUS’ trip to Ireland alone cost $4 million.
Our country’s deeply in debt. It’s time to save money. But a competent CEO would know that. It would be a priority.
And let’s give voters a fighting chance to elect someone they want.
Suppose a "poor” man could run for office? Suppose a candidate could come from the people instead of the same three families? Or ones chosen by the political honchos?
Suppose we had a candidate who owed nothing to anyone. Someone who knew what the meaning of "illegal” is, as in "illegal alien.”
Someone who didn’t think illegal immigrants break our laws because of "Love.” And believed that our laws were not meant to be broken.
Suppose we could elect officials who said what they meant.
Who talked about kids and education and infrastructure and then did something about it.
Someone who’d be appalled that America’s civil engineers gave the U.S. grades of C’s and D’s for the country’s infrastructure, from mediocre to poor.
Someone who would do more than throw money at the problem. Who wouldn’t spend nearly $30,000 for each student in D.C.’s schools and then end up with 83 percent of them unable to read and 81 percent unable to do math.
Suppose.
Then maybe we would get a president and Congressmen who really wanted the job, not just the power.
And someone who can throw a baseball.
Suppose.
Just suppose.
Hold the line, America.