Herman

Cain

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June 29, 2009

Why Does Congress Ignore the Public’s Wishes? Because They Don’t Care

Even though the congressional switchboard was shut down for a while last week due to calls from voters asking their representatives to vote no on the “American Clean Energy and Security Act (HR 2454)”, the House of Representatives narrowly passed it anyway.

When former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was asked last Saturday on Fox News why Congress ignored public feedback on this legislation, he said that they know they can get away with it and they don’t care.

Congress continues to insult the people of this country because members know that a majority of voters are clueless, another large group have very short memories on Election Day and those voters that are involved with trying to bring about real change in Washington, D.C. through their respective political parties are victims of poor party leadership. 

As a result, members of Congress can get away with ignoring public feedback and broken political promises because the clueless and the forgetful keep sending most of the same members back to Congress over and over again.

Once again, no member of Congress read the 1,000-plus page “climate bill”, just as not one member of Congress read the $787 billion, 1,000-plus page “stimulus bill” that passed recently. Members of Congress received both bills less than 24 hours before Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats called for a vote on these massive expansions of the federal government.

They don’t care that they are spending, taxing and regulating this country into socialism and financial oblivion while continuing to claim the opposite. The president is asking for these fast-track expansions of government after promising “transparency” in government when he was running for president.

This is not transparency. This is irresponsible and insulting.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California), chairman of the committee that wrote the “climate bill”, had a speed reader read the “climate bill” to the members of his committee. This was in response to the criticism of not giving members of Congress time to read the “stimulus bill” before sending it to the floor of the House for a vote.

The Democrats don’t care that they are misleading the public with bogus claims of how this legislation is going to create jobs and help spur the economy, because they can’t credibly substantiate or explain their claims.

The president simply says “trust me”, the people who dispute his claims are wrong, but the administration cannot tells us how they got their numbers. The president also said the unemployment rate would not exceed 8 percent if the “stimulus bill” were to pass. It did. The current unemployment rate is 9.4 percent and climbing.

Health care reform is the next mega-expansion of government on the Democrats’ fast track agenda. While addressing the American Medical Association recently concerning a proposed government health insurance option, the president said "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."

White House officials later responded that the president’s rhetoric should not be taken literally. I suppose we should not take his promise of “transparency” literally, nor his promise of a five-day waiting period before he signs legislation into law. He signed the “stimulus bill” in three days.

Broken political promises and ignoring public feedback is doubly insulting, but some of us will remember on Election Day. Trust us.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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