I say that this "was" one of the strengths of America since if you are observing what is going on in this country recently, our votes are becoming more and more less important while the power and freedom in this country is becoming more and more concentrated in Washington, the home of our Federal political class. Consider:
1) In Washington, according to a Bloomberg report that was summarized in the November 4, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, Washington D.C. is now the wealthiest metro area in the country, with the typical D.C. household having an average income of $84,523.
In the rest of the country, as reported in that same issue of The Week by the Washington Post, half of all U.S. workers earned less than $26,364 in 2010, which was the lowest median wage level since 1999. A household, in the rest of the country, with two average earners would earn only about $52,000 a year, roughly 40% less than a household in the Washington area.
CSM Monitor recently reported that that country's standard of living "has fallen longer and more steeply over the past three years" than at any time since the government started tracking the statistic over fifty years ago. I am assuming this trend is not happening in the Washington D.C. area.
2) In Washington, according to CBS News, as reported in the November 11, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, members of the House of Representatives earn over $170,000 a year, more than three times the average household income of the typical American household. However, those Congress people will be in Congressional session only 109 workdays in 2012 while in recess for 151 weekdays, primarily to be able to focus more on their re-election than the business of the country. In January, August, and October of 2012, they are scheduled to work six days, three days, and five days, respectively.
In the rest of the country, 14 million Americans do not have a job, millions more are underemployed, and millions are working two or more jobs in order to make ends meet. The vast majority of Americans are working well over 109 workdays a year for far less than $170,000.
3) According to a June 2, 2011 issue of the Wall Street Journal, the Washington D.C. area is the only metro area in the country where housing prices increased on a year over year basis, according to the S&P/Case Shiller home price index. This was caused by a number of factors including stable employment, fewer foreclosures, and a steady stream of house hunters. According to the Journal's report, other surveys indicate sales in the D.C. area are approaching boom-time levels.
In the rest of the country, housing prices continued to decline in most metro areas, foreclosures are clogging the housing market in the rest of the country, with no relief in sight, and the housing market in most U.S. metro areas is no where close to "boom times."
4) In Washington, over 50% of the members of Congress are in the top 1% of income earners in the country, according to an analysis in the November 4, 2011 issue of The Week magazine.
In the rest of the country, 1% of the population is in the top 1% of the income earners in the country.
5) In Washington, it apparently does not matter whether or not you do your job, you get to keep your job regardless. The prime example of this phenomenon comes from a recent article in Politco that was summarized in the November 11, 2011 issue of The Week magazine. This article reported that although the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill was signed into law 15 months ago, the government agencies responsible for writing the required regulations of the law have missed more than 75% of the law's implementation deadlines.
In the rest of the country, if a typical worker missed over 75% of their deadlines, they would quickly be replaced by someone from the millions and millions of other Americans who are in need of a full time job.
6) According to a July 21, 2011 article in the National Journal, the lobbying business in Washington continues to thrive. Lobbyists continue to help their corporate and union clients to influence the government regulations needed as a result of Obama Care, Dodd-Frank, and other legislation and find ways around the tightening of earmarks to keep special interest money flowing.
In the rest of the country, every American has only one vote to oppose the billions and billions of lobbyist dollars currently flowing into Washington to influence special interests.
7) In Washington, the political class enjoys inexpensive, high quality health care, receives automatic annual pay raises regardless of how poorly they perform their jobs, and enjoys very lucrative traditional pensions.
In the rest of the country, tens of millions of Americans are about to be lose their current health insurance coverage and be forced into government run health insurance exchanges because of how poorly Obama Care was written, most Americans are happy to just have a job, never mind getting a raise, and very few working people outside of Washington are now able to get a traditional pension.
You get the idea. As power gets more and more concentrated, power gets more and more easily to corrupt. As freedom and liberty get more and more concentrated, freedom and liberty get easier to restrict. We are quickly devolving into the French monarchy or the Soviet Politburo (made that much more ominous by Obama's word choice of "czars" for the shadow government he has established in the White House).
None of these developments bode well for liberty. To combat this creeping political class domination, several steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" need to be taken quickly to save our democracy:
- Step 39 - this step would impose term limits on all Federal politicians so that they would be "one and done," serving one term in office and then retiring from national politics. Today's politicians are more concerned about staying in office then fixing what is wrong with the country. Restricting them to one term would put a sense of urgency and focus back into their work habits.
- Step 37 - this step would move the performance appraisal function into the hands of Americans citizens, they would determine if and how much of a pay raise politicians would receive each year. No more automatic pay raises for Washington.
- Step 34 - this step would kick Congressional committee members off of their respective committees for bad or non-performance of their jobs on that committee. It is called accountability, no more free passes on bad performance.
- Step 41 - would prevent any Congressional member or President from drawing a Federal paycheck if their net worth was over $3 million when they came into office. Given that 50% of Congress falls into the upper 1% of the nation's earners, this should not be a hardship for most members of the Federal political class. These people should be in Washington to serve the nation and not to serve their personal wealth needs.
- Step 42 - this step establishes financial benchmarks that would cut off Secret Service coverage and other government expense coverage after a President leaves office if that President was wealthy enough to afford his or her own protection. Again, serving the country in political office should be a service calling, not an opened ended bank account for multi-millionaires.
- Step 9 - this step would terminate the tradition government pension benefit for all Federal workers hired in the future and would terminate the traditional pension benefit for all current and past members of Congress immediately. This would force the current and past set of politicians to survive their retirement on Social Security, 401k-like plans, and their personal savings, just like the rest of most of America.
- Step 6 - this step would allow only individual Americans to contribute to election campaigns, hopefully removing much of the oversized corporate, union, PAC, lobbyists, and other special interest money flowing into Washington, money that dilutes the cherished "one person, one vote" principle.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available, at http://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.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/
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