US Politicians

The search for an honest man has been going on since the time of the skeptical Greek philosopher Diogenes (404-323 BC).  Honest men are rare, particularly in politics. I put Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump in the “honest” category.

Politicians are trained by their campaign managers to not offend anyone. I call it the straightjacket dance. Furthermore, Politicians rarely have anything on their websites other than donation requests and pictures of their family. Thankfully, most races identify the candidate as a Republican or a Democrat.  I think Democrats are nuts, so I usually try to vote for a Republican.  But it’s difficult to determine what kind of Republican each candidate is.  I want to vote for a Republican who will strictly adhere to the US Constitution (as originally written), but most politicians don’t identify themselves as Constitutionalists because they are told to not offend anyone.

Campaign costs for a US Congress seat exceed $1 million. The cost of running for the US Senate exceeds $5 million. In 2018 these 535 politicians raised $1.7 billion. The politicians raise most of this money from corporations, PACs, other like-minded politicians and government funded non-profits. The politicians do not work for the voters; they work for the campaign contributors.

In our current political environment, the duties of our elected officials have no written priorities like infrastructure maintenance. There are few laws that effectively limit the taxing and borrowing power of elected officials. They are free to be as sloppy with our tax dollars as they like.

The US Constitution does limit the federal government under its “limited powers”, but the Congress and Courts ignore the US Constitution and continue to pass unconstitutional laws and fund unconstitutional departments, agencies and programs. Spending routinely exceeds revenue and annual deficits are transferred to the National Debt that is currently 106% of US Nominal GDP.

States generally are required to keep spend under control with their balanced budget rules, but these do not affect their ability to borrow. States continue to throw money at public education, public transit and healthcare making the cost of these excessive.

The failure of the US Congress to control immigration has led to excessive welfare migrant populations soaking up all the minimum wage jobs that used to go to US citizens and US teenagers.

The off-shoring of manufacturing jobs and restricting the oil, gas, mineral and timber industries destroyed the US middle class.

Education is full of indoctrination and liberal propaganda and very little useful information. The useless curriculum in public schools and colleges created a workforce of US citizens without the skills to be employable beyond minimum wage jobs. The student loan debt is now $1.7 trillion.

The 2008 financial meltdown was the result of US anti-discrimination laws that required Banks to lend mortgages to unqualified buyers. These laws were the Community Reinvestment Act of 1993 and HUD rules. The meltdown created a global depression we are still recovering from. Democrats and RINOs are to blame. Only 20% of our current Republicans are worth keeping. Congressional scores on Constitutional compliance can be found on Conservative Review Scorecard.

Democrat Bills are full of tripwires that result in disasters. This political party needs to be found guilty of malpractice and outlawed before the US becomes Venezuela.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader