My Letter to Congress: You Should Be Ashamed!

This is my letter to Congress, the President of the United States, my senator, governor, mayor, police chief, and neighbor:

WHAT ARE WE AS A NATION, THINKING?

Today it comes out in national news that since Republicans and Democrats can’t come to a decision about what to do about our debt ceiling, we’re going to consider giving President Obama the executive power to secure up to 2.5 trillion dollars. Let me say that again: that’s 2,500,000,000,000 dollars! And WHY are they doing it? They’re doing it because no one can make a decision about how to pull our country out of debt. Republicans suggested giving this power to Obama because they can’t decide on a way to get out of the debt yet they want a way to wash their hands of it if it fails. They basically said “Since we don’t agree, how about we give you power to do it, and we can just decide we don’t like it, but then we didn’t vote for it, so it’s not our fault!”

Two months ago president obama (and I didn’t capitalize his title because I don’t think he personally deserves it. It’s my small private version of spitting in his face…) threatened to throw the US Military under the bus and stop their pay. Now he’s threatening to stop Social Security and Medicare?

Let me get this right: You don’t want to pay the people who defend our country (military). You don’t want to pay the people who built our country (retirees) Who exactly besides yourself do you propose gets to keep getting paid? I vote we stop paying YOU!

What the hell are WE THE PEOPLE people thinking?

Let me express my thoughts to you about what you (government) CAN do with all your political power, and what you CAN NOT do: (regardless of what you might THINK you can do)

Medicare: Keep your darned hands off it. The government does not have the right to mess with Medicare. We The People funded medicare all our lives from our taxes and as long as We The People don’t spend more from that saving account than we put into it, you have no right to mess with it. Your job is to simply sit there, hold our money, and give it back to us when we’re too old, decrepit, or injured to work to survive anymore. That’s it. You don’t have the right to adjust medicare spending beyond being sure it’s not being wasted on people who have no right to it or who are simply lazy.

Medicaid: Guess what, this is another STATE-managed system to help people who are either too poor or too sick to care for themselves. Yes it’s 50% funded by the Federal government but you guys can’t handle money obviously so just admit it, back out of funding Medicaid, and give the power back to the states to handle their own Medicaid programs. We can do it, trust me. This will free you guys up to focus on more important things, like what kind of light bulbs we’re able to use. (Yes, this is an actual federal law that went into effect!)

Social Security: Again, this is not your money, so why do you have any say in how it’s used? We The People give you money to hold for us until we get old. You get the benefit of having our money to invest and make interest on until we’re old and need it back, at which time YOU get to keep the interest and we only get back what we put in. Why do you think you have the right to spend or decide on how to spend people’s money who have been putting that money in this federal savings account since before you were born! And why do you think you have the right to give OUR money to sorry immigrants who didn’t’ ever pay into it in the first place. If you contribute to Social Security, you get it when you get older. If you don’t, then you don’t. How simple is that for you people to understand?

What you CAN do

Tax us: Sure, you can tax us. And I agree with paying taxes. Absolutely. However there are no loopholes for small guys like me who are a sole-proprietorship and who pay our taxes. We don’t get to avoid our taxes like the big corporations do by taking advantage of loopholes you don’t dare close for fear of cutting off the hand that feeds you. Well guess what: we get a vote too and time is coming when all the money from corporations in the world wont’ be able to save you from public dislike and you’ll finally be ousted from office.. once America finally decides it’s had enough of your antics and bullying and whining and complaining.

Decide what we’re going to pay for goods: Stop paying 94 god-awful dollars per barrel of gas. I worked in the oil fields of an oil-exporting country. I know what it costs per barrel and what they pay for it at their pumps. FYI: Gas in Libya is less than 48 cents per gallon. We pay ten times that at our pump! Try this for a change:

“Dear World,

We are the single largest consumer of your product, oil. We are no longer willing to play ridiculous games with you. We are offering a rate of X dollars per barrel. We’re not offering contracts or long-term investments in your country. We’re simply buying a product. If you don’t want to sell it to us for that price, we wish you the best of luck when your tank farms fill up and there’s no one to purchase your oil. Then you can go back to riding your camels and washing your burkas in dirty water.

Sincerely,

The US-of-Freaking-A”

Every oil-exporting country would be breaking down our doors to sell it to us for less than half what we pay now after simply ten days of it stock-piling in their tanks. They’ve got nowhere to store it, can’t pump more of it until they find a way to, and don’t want to stop paying employees.And by the way.. no one else is buying it but us any damned way! Their countries would be in fear of going bankrupt. Know what? I don’t care if children starve in Afghanistan and women have to prostitute themselves for cous cous money. I don’t care if hundreds of thousands in Mogadishu starve to death, or if Saudi Princes have to cut down on the amount of Maserati’s they buy their ten wives each year.

I care that my country survives financially and economically. After we’re OK, we’ll be glad to help you sorry bastards out of your stupid predicament. By the way, here’s an idea: Move out of the damned desert! If even grass can’t grow there, chances are God didn’t want you there in the first place. That’s why he gave you feet! Move!

Use the same approach for every single commodity we import. Nah, we don’t want to pay that much for it. Sell it someplace else.

Throw out all the Illegal Aliens: I’m tired of you giving them my money and benefits. Toss every single one of them on a boat and send them back to where they came from. Either pay taxes or get the hell out on day one!

Tax Big Business: Oh get off your own pedestal for a moment and tax the damned people who can afford to pay it. For God’s sake you allow major corporations to evade taxes through loopholes while at the same time borrowing money from another country because you’re too stupid to get it back from your own.

Guess what, if we don’t’ do SOMETHING we’re going to default on trillions of dollars YOU PEOPLE shouldn’t have borrowed anyway.

Take accountability for your own mistakes:

President Obama and all of Congress, your job is to run a business. That business is the USA. I run a business, as does my wife. When we don’t make enough money we don’t get to borrow it from someone else. All our employees get paid first. Then all our bills get paid. Then what’s left comes to us. If we are successful, we get paid. If we aren’t then its US who pays the price, not our employees. We don’t get paychecks. When my company suffered because of your economic poor choices I went from 6 staff members to none. I went from a large office with a conference room to a home-office. Why? Because I had to tighten my belt and survive. You should have the same thoughts. Cut the crap and keep what’s important.

We do the jobs that pay your salaries, so consider us your employees. You’ve done such a piss poor job of running our country that we collectively think YOU need to bear the weight of your poor decisions. If you can’t pay the bills AND pay us AND pay yourself, then its YOU who shouldn’t get paid until you figure it out. How dare congress and the President sit there and continue to collect a paycheck while running us into debt. You owe it to the citizens of this great country to not pay YOU before you don’t pay your bills. After all, if I don’t pay mine to you then you come lock me up in jail. How the hell is that fair?

Two Standards? What’s up with that?

To take it further I’ll use a real-world example that I can attest to myself: ( I know this because as an employer I’m faced with owing back Federal 941 taxes due to a poor choice in accountants a few years ago.)

You could reasonably compare Federal withholding requirements by employers to what the government does with Medicare and Social Security. We, the employer, withhold money from our employee’s paychecks and turn it over monthly or quarterly to you, the government. This is , by the way, the same money we’re already talking about… Medicare and Social Security. Remember that.

If we forget or decide not to send you that money that we withheld from our employees when its due then we’re considered in violation of what’s called a “Trust”, meaning we took money In-Trust to give to you that was yours and didn’t give it to you. The penalty for that  crime can be anywhere from seizing our company and personal assets, closing our business, and or putting us in jail AND taking a mandatory percentage of our pay via garnishment until the debt is settled.

Now, let me see if I understand this: You (the government) has been taking my pay, my mother’s and father’s pay, and theirs since before I was even BORN, and holding that money in trust. The difference is YOU are allowed to invest it and make a profit off it where we as employers are not. Now, you took that money for the last let’s say… 40 years of my mother’s working life. Now, when it’s about time for you to have to give back OUR money that you’ve been holding IN TRUST for us, you tell us you can’t because you don’t have it? What the hell? There’s a word for that. It’s called embezzlement.

Why isn’t the IRS seizing the assets of President Obama, members of Congress, and others? I’m sure we can sell some of Michelle Obama shiny new acoutrements that WE paid for, get rid of some of the old cars the president really doesn’t need, hock the gold toilet-seats, let him do without a shiny new suit for every day of the week, and take his pay, along with the pay from every member of Congress who willingly put us in this situation. That’s the penalty for US your citizens. Why isn’t it the penalty for you? Why are you so much better than the rest of us who you depend on to have a job? What makes you think you can walk all over us eternally with no consequence?

Conclusion

Our Congress and our President are a bunch of self-inflated windbags …. (and I can’t think other adjectives that are not overly rude for a public forum) who deserve to all be fired, if not even imprisoned! Let’s see; there’s embezzlement, defaulting on debts to WE THE PEOPLE, not other countries, and the list goes on.

How you can take the most powerful country in the history of the world and screw it up so royally in such a small amount of time is a disgusting mark on America’s integrity and you should all have the decency to either step down or come to a cooperative solution that benefits We The People, not you the Powerful! Get your heads out of your asses and fix this problem or let those who can step up and do it themselves.

It’s a shame I can’t run for President. Who knows, maybe I can. Anyone want to toss me a few spare million for an advertising campaign? Cause show me THAT guy and I’ll show you a guy whose not paying enough taxes!

I’d vote for ANY middle-class American who’s actually had to work his whole life over any of you any day! It’s time a real born-and-bred American working man got a chance to fix what you’ve all been so very good at messing up. I’d happily vote for a small town sheriff, town mayor, or a simple firefighter who risks his life daily over any of you with your Ivy League educations and lack of real-world experience. Guess what, if you went to Harvard with a silver spoon in your mouth  you don’t know what it’s like to be an American. I grew up swinging a hammer to pay bills, not wielding a pen with the power to take money from others. I grew up sweating to produce money to feed my family. The only thing you sweat is how you’re gonna get out of this and hope for re-election so you can keep your $200,000 per year salary! When I make a poor decision and hurt myself, it’s me who bleeds and suffers for it. When you make a poor decision and hurt…. wait.. it’s still me who bleeds and suffers for it.

Doesn’t seem fair to me.