However, if you overlay these life lessons with the behavior we usually have gotten from the politicians in the United States' political class, it makes you wonder if most of them never made it past the final exam in kindergarten. For example:
- "Share everything." It does not seem like many of the Democrats in Congress are used to this little rule. President Obama has made a compromise agreement with the Republicans this week concerning the extension of unemployment benefits for the unemployed in this country and extending the expiring Bush tax cuts for every American, including those earning over $250,000 a year, something that many Democrats oppose.
Many of these Democrats do not want to share their power and have made fools of themselves this week acting like kindergartners, upset that they did not get their way like they have over the past few years when they ruled the House Of Representatives, had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, and occupied the White House. They could have done anything they wanted and not shared the power with the Republicans.
However, they have no one to blame but themselves for missing that historic power window. They could have solved this issue to their liking two years ago but frittered away their time and advantage, accomplishing virtually nothing. With the recently empowered Republicans flexing their muscles and demanding the Democrats finally share some of the power, the Democrats are acting like spoiled kindergartners who have to share for the first time.
- "Don't hit people." Over the past few years, those Americans who had legitimate and rightful disagreements with the policies of Obama and the Democrats were called un-American, likened to the racists of the Civil Rights era, were called knuckle dragging Neanderthals, were called a--h----s by a member of the President's czar staff, and were likened to the sheet wearing Ku Klux Klan. Although none of these Americans were "hit" physically, the were hit with uncalled for names. As we should have all learned in kindergarten, you should not hit people, either physically or verbally.
A corollary to this rule is another from the book: "Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody." In life, nothing ever gets accomplished while you are calling someone bad names and nothing will ever get accomplished until you say you are sorry for calling them those names. Maybe that is why in the past five decades or so the American political class has never solved any issue of consequence. They never say they are sorry, they never show any respect or compassion for anyone that dares to disagree with their position.
- "Play fair." As stated above, the Democrats had a historic power window for two years where they controlled all facets of Washington. Rather than recognize this window of opportunity, they did nothing until Scott Brown busted their filibuster power with an upset Senate election in Massachusetts. All of a sudden they realized that their dream of passing Obama Care was in danger because of their incompetence in managing time. Rather than play fair and by the rules of the Senate, they snuck this important, and soon to be disastrous piece of legislation through the back door of reconciliation for approval, bypassing all standard and traditional legislative practices.
This is certainly not playing fair. You screwed up by not moving fast enough and now you want to change the rules in midstream, sounds very kindergarten-like to me.
- "Clean up your own mess." Over the past three fiscal years, years when the Democrats controlled both parts of Congress, the location where government budgets are developed and passed, the United States Federal government has increased its national debt by over $4 TRILLION. This comes out to about a $36,000 debt burden for each American household.
Now, all of a sudden, the Congressional Democrats want to tax the rich in order to help balance the budget that they managed to screw up so royally. If they got their way, the Treasury would get another $70 billion a year by taxing the so-called rich. Over three years they would get an additional $210 billion or cover about only 5% of the additional debt hole the Democrats created during their three year unchallenged reign.
They screwed up the budget and national debt, they should clean up this mess with real budget reform and not dump their problem onto hard working Americans who happen to be very successful. You know as well as it that if given an additional $210 billion, they would wastefully spend it and not reduce the budget black hole they created. If they were serious in this matter, they would have taken our advice and created a virtual lock box where the additional tax dollars would have been managed by the Treasury Department to pay down the debt, untouched by any politician's hands.. They did not propose this and thus, they themselves need to clean up this mess they created.
- "Don't take things that are not yours." This is related to the previous topic of cleaning up your messes. The political class has created so much national debt that it is unlikely that this generation of Americans, which has created the debt mess, will be able to clean it up in our lifetimes, it is that bad. The recent approaches and suggestions to fix this deficit spending habit in this country cannot find a way to fix the national debt problem for decades. Thus, we have allowed our political class to steal the financial freedom from future generations of Americans, something that is not theirs to steal.
-"Flush." The Federal government has never had a good flushing, getting rid of waste matter that no longer is of use to the living organism of government:
- Several years ago headlines were made when the Federal government finally decided to shut down a World War I program that had existed for decades after the war ended. Apparently, back during the war, the government was worried that we would run out of helium gas for our military's dirigible balloons and passed a law that ensured that the U.S. military maintained a back up supply of helium for these balloons, long after that need became extinct.
- It was recently reported that a Christopher Columbus-focused government agency which was created in the early 1990s to celebrate the five hundred year anniversary of Columbus discovering the new world was still being funded, more than fifteen years after it was supposed to be terminated.
- Last week we reported in this blog that the government of Florida was still maintaining over 6 million paper ballots from the 2000 Presidential election in a temperature controlled room at an annual cost of over $40,000.
- "Wash your hands before you eat." In the future, the political class should eliminate earmarks which are generally a sneaky and dirty way to give out our taxpayer money in return for re-election campaign donations. That way, when they come to us during election campaigns and ask for our support, we know that they have already washed their hands of the special interests and are looking out only for our interests in a clean, non-politically dirty and hypocritical way.
- "Take a nap every afternoon." Given that the political class has not won the war on drugs, developed a national energy strategy and policy, fixed our failing schools, protected us from terrorists attacks, protected us from the effects of the Great Recession, etc. but have managed to wasted trillions of dollars in he process of doing nothing, maybe if they slept more and governed less we would all be better off. Seems the more they do, the worse off we get. At the very least, after one term they should all take a nap because term limits would have kicked in and their return to private life after serving the country would give them plenty of time to nap.
If our politicians still do not understand kindergarten, maybe they should read "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" which provides fifty steps necessary to implement most of these basic kindergarten tenets. These steps include a 50% downsizing of the government and its budget over five years, how to eliminate earmarks, procedures to address the drug, education, energy and other social problems facing Americans and other basic kindergarten rules.
If necessary, I would be happy to read these steps to them over some warm cookies and milk, the best suggestion of all in Mr. Fulghum's book.
Our recent book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
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