Latino Inaugural Gala 2009

I recently came across an April 19, 2010 Associated Press article that reported on a Pew Research Center opinion poll. The poll reported that about 80% of Americans say that they do not trust the Federal government and that they have little faith that the government can solve America’s ills. My first thought was that Americans are just being mad at politicans like they have always typically been. But I think it goes deeper this time than just being mad. I think that America is not just mad with our politicians but on so many issues are both disgusted and disappointed in the performance of the political class:

- We are disappointed in the inability of politicians to understand the concept of “conflict of interest” especially when Senator Dodd, chairman of the Senate committee that oversees the financial industry in this country, accepts very favorable mortgage considerations from a business (Countrywide Mortgages) in that industry (Earthlink News – 7/27/2009), when that same Senator Dodd receives substantial campaign donations from Federal mortgage agencies he is overseeing and regulating (Fannie and Freddie), when Senator Hilary Clinton gets substantial tax relief for a mall developer in New York after that mall developer makes a 0,000 to Bill Clinton’s foundation (New York Times – 1/3/2009), or when Senator Baucus nominates his girlfriend for a U.S. attorney general position in Montana (New York Times/St. Pete Times – 12/6/09).

- We are disappointed when the government tells me that almost 0 billion of taxpayer dollars are wasted every year through fraud and incorrect payments (Earthlink News – 11/188/2009) and that number was up billion or more than 36% from the year before, i.e. the fraud is getting worse at a very rapid pace.

- We are disgusted when that same article also quotes the government as claiming only .5% of the U.S. Defense budget is wasted, we simply do not believe that an entity that large and that far flung has that low of a waste factor.

- We are disappointed in the low level of esteem and high level of contempt Senator Reid displayed for the very taxpayers that pay his salary when he claimed back in December, 2008 that “in the summer time…you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol.”

- We are disgusted that several months after the major financial corporations (including AIG, Citigroup and Freddie Mac) made substantial donations to the bankrolling of the national conventions for both the Republicans and Democrats, these same corporations received untold billions of taxpayer dollars as a bailout for their poor management of their respective businesses (Associated Press article – “Troubled Firms Bankrolled Political Conventions”).

- We are disappointed that Senator Reid would resort to racial stereotypes when he described President Obama as “light skinned” and “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one” (Associated Press – 1/9/2010).

- We are disgusted when some in the Democratic Party liken some of us to the racists of the civil rights era because we expressed an honest opinion in disagreement with Obama Care while Senator Reid can refer to a persons’ skin color and stereotyped speech pattern and not get branded as a racist.

- We are disappointed that we continue to pay taxes to government safety agencies that are supposed to protect consumers from dangers when we have had three major heavy metal (lead and two cadmium product recalls) situations where these metals were involved in the production of children’s toys (Associated Press 1/11/2010).

- We are disgusted that when the country faces so many major issues that Congress would take time to wastefully debate and expend resources to draft and pass a bill aimed at forcing college football to set up a new playoff system (Associated Press – 12/09/10).

- We are disappointed that when one of the few decent folks in the Senate, Senator Bayh of Indiana, decides that the fight in Washington is so dysfunctional and so no longer worth the battle that he decides not to continue his political career (Businessweek – 3/1/2010).

- We are disgusted that while the country’s financial systems and economic base was falling apart in the lead up to the latest recession that at least two and a half dozen SEC employees, some at very high levels of responsibility, were spending most, if not all, of their work time surfing the Internet and downloading the pornographic images they found onto their government issued computers (Associated Press – 4/23/2010).

- We are disappointed it took so long for the government to figure out that the Federal Head Start program, which has already eaten up and wasted 0 billion in taxpayer money, has no long lasting positive effect on the children that go through the program, i.e. Head Start is no more than an expensive Federal day care program, as reported in a recently published Department of Health and Human Services study. This finding negates Obama’s 2009 claim that “for every dollar we invest in these programs (like Head Start), we get nearly back in reduced welfare rolls, fewer health care costs, and less crime.” Why did it take so long to figure out the waste of the program? Very disappointing.

- We are disgusted that Department of Interior Minerals Management Service employees in the Gulf Of Mexico offices spent a lot of their work time downloading pornography to their government computers, did not do the required number of inspections of Gulf oil rigs, received free hunting and fishing trips from the companies they were supposed to be inspecting, negotiated job offers with the very companies whose rigs they were inspecting, and approved a safety and contingency plan for the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon well in 2009 that had absolutely no chance of working (Associated Press – 5/17/2010, 5/28/2010, and 6/9/2010).

- We are disappointed that the political class has not the faintest understanding of basic economics and this shallow understanding continually results in wasteful, expensive, and ineffective programs such as Cash For Clunkers, the New Home Buyers Credit program, Cash For Appliances, etc. that merely shift economic demand around in time, do not result in increased demand, and just give away taxpayer money to those that would have purchased a new car or new home anyway (Associated Press – 6/23/2010).

- We are disgusted that a candidate for Congress would stoop so low on the illegal immigration issue that he thinks “we should catch ‘em, we should document ‘em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going, I actually support micro-chipping them. I can micro-chip my dog so I can find it. Why can’t I micro-chip an illegal?” (Cedar Rapids Gazette – 4/27/2010).

- We are disappointed that the Obama administration sees fit to sue the state of Arizona for trying to control the illegal immigration flow over its borders rather than trying to solve the root cause of the problem, i.e. the overwhelming illegal flow of people, guns, and drugs across all of our borders, while not suing U.S. cities that actually welcome and service illegal aliens in violation of Federal law.

- We are disgusted that President Obama has remained silent while those that respectfully and legally disagree with his policies have been called racists, un-American, knuckle dragging Neanderthals, terrorists, and other names, resulting in a country more divided than ever against itself.

- We are disappointed that it took over 3,700 claims by an elderly Brooklyn woman before the Federal government finally decided there was some fraud going on, resulting in 94 arrests and busts of crime efforts that had bilked the Medicare program of about 0 million. The disappointment is why did it take so long to crack down when Medicare fraud has been a problem from Day One of the program (Associated Press – 7//16/2010).

- We are disgusted that the political class continues to pit one group of Americans against another, whether it is rich vs. poor, gay vs. straight, pro life vs. pro choice, resulting in Americans fighting each other rather than bringing heat to bear on the American political class to finally solve some real issues facing the country.

- We are disappointed that GM and the Obama administration thought the American public was too dumb to find out or too dumb to understand that when GM announced that it was paying back .7 billion in government loans, that it was not repayng the fund out of its own earnings but were drawing funds from another government fund to repay the government loan, i.e. taxpayers were paying taxpayers (The Week magazine – 5/7/2010).

- We are disgusted that in these tough economic times, politicians at all levels seem to ignore these hard times and the suffering of their constituents: 1) members of the Illinois Governor’s staff got substantial raises (some more than 20%) at the same time that the Governor was cutting the state budget by .4 billion (Associated Press – 7/2/2010), 2) three town administrators in a small town in California, where 17% of the town residents live in poverty, received 7,637 (city administrative officer), 6,288 (assistant city manager), and 7,000 (police chief) in salary in addition to outrageous pensions (Associated Press – 7/22/2010) and 3) the members of Congress that automatically raise their salaries every year regardless of how poorly they lead and perform and how poorly the economy and the nation is doing.

- We are disappointed that money still continues to pervert our elective system with a recent article reporting that a long time Democratic fund raiser, Hassan Nemazee, was recently sentenced to 12 years in prison for fraud, using some of the fraud money he gathered to donate to the campaign funds of Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, and Al Gore (Associated Press – 7/15/2010) and another recent article (Associated Press – 7/22/2010) that reported that Congressman Charles Rangel was recently charged with multiple ethics violations including using government resources to raise money for the Charles Rangel Center For Public Service, receiving improper advantage from New York City’s rent stabilization program, and his failure to report income on his disclosure forms.

- We are disgusted that so-called leaders of this country continue to have adultery problems including President Clinton, Governor Spitzer, Senator Ensign, Governor Sanford, Governor MacGreevey, and Senator Edwards, just to name a few. It is not the sex that we are disgusted with, it is the lies of adultery (if they lied in this area, can they be trusted in another area), it is the time it takes to cover up such affairs, time that could be better spent governing, and it is the potential for blackmail that would never result in the good of the taxpayer.

- We are disappointed in the inability of either party to solve any issue of consequence with the drug problem lingering over this country since the late 1960s, the inability to come up with a comprehensive and sane energy program hanging around since the mid-1970s, the continued failure of public schools despite the warnings of a national commission on education in the early 1980s and the failure to secure our borders from terrorists despite numerous terror attacks in the 1990s (USS Cole attack, African embassy bombings, first World Trade Center bombing), etc.

- We are disgusted when we see how poorly we are represented, as proven by the comments coming out of the Wisconsin county politician who believes that Arizona is not a border state with Mexico, the comments from a Georgia Congressman who spoke at a Congressional hearing of his fear that the island of Guam could tip over in the ocean, and the Speaker of the House who believes that unemployment is the best way to create jobs in this country (all of these outrageous claims can be found on YouTube).

It does get overwhelming so lets stop now. However, just when you start to lose all hope, you often stumble across something that reinvigorates that hope. For me, it was an uplifting YouTube video. To view it go to the YouTube site and search for “Free Hugs In Sondrio, Italy.” Apparently this movement has been going on for a while. In a nutshell, people go to public places and hold up signs offering free hugs. The results are amazing. Total strangers going up to each other and giving each other a hug. No one accusing another of being a racist or a Neanderthal or a terrorist or unpatriotic or too rich or too white or too pro choice or too pro life or too anything. Just humans connecting on a very personal and enjoyable level. No politicians around to point out our differences, just individuals making some good, simple memories.

Thus, this video should give us  hope, that all of us are basically good people and  we can overcome our differences, our disappointments, and our disgust. If we can go up to and hug a total stranger, than just about anything can be overcome. This proves there is a disconnect somewhere and the cause of that disconnect is the political class. They need us to hate each other and defend our “tribe,” it allows them to divert attention from their failings and nonperformance. This video proved to me that term limits are needed more than ever. We need to continually replenish Congress with people that believe in hugs and not divisiveness. Getting them out of office before they lose the free hugs aspect is critical to working together and solving our problems going forward.

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