I dreamed a dream

This political fighting is getting to me.  It's haunting me in my dreams.

I am in a train car with separate compartments.  I happen to be in a compartment with Speaker of the House Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Reid.  I find I have a unique opportunity to speak to these two gentlemen.  I start off by saying that I'm disgusted with the fact that they cannot work together to come up with a compromise.  I state that life is full of compromises and we don't always get what we want.  In fact, people who compromise are valued for their ability to do so.  I'm tired of the bullying and standing off.  Both men just sit and stare at me.  I wax more poetic, telling them that I have a bachelor's and two master's degrees, and I can work with people to get things done.  Then I say, but I don't need those to know that working together is better than not.  All this I learned in kindergarten.  Then I round on Mr. Speaker, telling him that he should play well with others, and learn to share and that kindergarteners get this better than he does.  Then I yell at them both for sitting in their offices, getting perks, privileges, and extra money, just for having been elected.  I said they were out of touch and no politician really knows about what they do and how it affects people.  I said they didn't deserve the salaries and the high paying friends they had because they weren't getting the job done.

I woke up, still angry about the fact that these elected representatives aren't doing us a bit of good.  I started wondering if we needed to limit Congressional terms as well.  If they aren't worrying about getting re-elected, would they instead think ahead to the future and be brave enough to make the tough decisions to get us out of this mess.

The commission on the budget has said we need to change Social Security and Medicare.  They have suggested raising the age of retirement.  They have also said to get us out of debt, we need to increase taxes.  I'm sorry people, the reason why the banks failed was because too many Americans were over-extended.  But there's no incentive to save.  Not when savings rates are 1.35% and that's on a CD.  Do you remember when you could get 5% on checking?  Yes, really, on checking!!!  Instead of getting more credit people, we have to spend our hard earned money.  Yup, which means also the government needs our hard earned money to get out of debt.  We can't keep living in lalaland thinking we are going to get out of this by cutting what we spend.  Eventually, in a household, you don't eat, or don't drive your car, or don't pay your doctor bills.  Then the household will implode.  Not going to work for the government, either.  It's going to hurt and if people on the left would quit crying about the entitlements, buck up and say, hey, ok, we'll raise the age limits and cut back some, and those on the right, if they would quit hollering, no taxes (I'm sorry guys, your hero Ron Reagan raised your taxes.  He didn't like it, but he did it.  He and Tip came to an understanding. So if you're going to be all excited about him, remember, he PLAYED WELL WITH OTHERS).  Right wingers, we cannot be policemen of the world and spend our money on the military if you're not going to pay for it!

So, I'm thinking, I'm tired of politicians.  I would like to see the regular folks say, enough is enough.  And I mean moderates, not Tea Party unknowns or extreme liberals.  Moderates, who would think about running for office, think about only staying in one term, and if enough of us got there, would we be able to tackle the hard questions, talk civilly to each other and come to a compromise?  I would hope so.  But civilly minded people don't run for office.   Winners run for office, and they want to keep winning and have their opinions win.

It is getting so divided.  I will admit it, I find myself being a hater.  I hate being angry at the TV, angry at the person who votes against me or my position, angry at the people who won't work together, tense because I'm judging people before I really should, just because they are of a certain party.  I am tired of extremes.  I want a civil conversation.  I want my conversation to have give and take and, in the end, I want both groups to say, hey, that was a lot of hard work, but we each got a say and what we produced is something we ALL can be proud of.

So much to blog about, but I keep quiet

Lots of political things happening in my state and the nation.  I have definite and naked opinions.  But I also have a job that I need to keep.  I want to shout from the rooftops my frustration with what appears to be illogical thinking and gross misrepresentation and generalization of how I as a taxpayer feel about things.

I will say that education is incredibly important and that cutting it is the most short-sighted thing we can do to our nation.  Not just for our children, who, as an average, are falling behind the rest of their counterparts in other DEVELOPED countries, but also for the future innovation and pulling up from our bootstraps to make us who we are.  We are cutting off the opportunities for our future to continue to have the majority of us live good middle class lives.  It seems many people are believing that taxes are evil and are what are going to drive us into the ground.  I believe that is not true.  However, none of those people will be alive when their grandchildren or great grandchildren have to deal with the fallout of their decisions.  Why should it bother them? 

Stopping spending now, which seems to be the direction we are going, appears that it will make local governments and school districts have to shed personnel.  This will remove good middle class paying jobs.  More and more parents will both have to work just to maintain a $40,000 income (and I'm talking in my area, there are many other places where the cost of living is so much higher and they need to make more just to be able to own a home in their area).  Down the rabbit hole we go.  There will be no wonderland on the other side.