A Pox On Both Your Houses
The title is from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It also represents my feelings about both houses of our Congress.
Congress has just passed a bailout bill that was necessary, according to representative and senators, to avoid a dire economic disaster. Forget the rightness or wrongness of the bill itself for a moment and just consider the pork they slipped into it.
One would think, for once, our Congress could think of the country and leave aside pork barrel and earmark spending.
They couldn’t.
Check it over, folks, the bill contains enough “sweeteners,” as one Congressperson called them in public, to make any lowlife con artist green with envy.
Congresspersons have finally proved, in public and under dangerous circumstances, that it is impossible for them to think only of the country. They cannot act for the good of the country, nor can they put aside for once their shady little greedy pork barrels.
I am totally disgusted.
Mark Twain got it right when he said that Congress was America’s only native criminal class.
Again, a pox on both their houses.
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R(& readers),Never really thought I’d ask this…Is there less of this crap in Australia? I am truly disgusted with our country.
Clyde
Martin Zager–
I like your thinking, although I am not sure there is enough pork in the world to choke a congressperson.
Thanx for writing,
Ralph Hood
“we the people”,until wthe the people smarten up and heed Licolns speech, we have to get rit of every one in both hpuses aaaand while we are at make make sure they choke on their pork
Earl–
Right you are. Congress has been reluctant indeed to vote for term limits and line item veto.
Maybe we should just go ahead and storm the Bastille?
(Just joking, of course. I’m not trying to foment a revolution—yet.)
Thanks for writing.
Ralph
Term limits, Ralph….and line item veto for the Prez, whoever. The only way this side of “storming the Bastille” to change the way of things. But who do you suppose has to pass a bill of this nature….hmmmmm…Congress ? Let’s all hold our breath.
For Yankee Bob Again–
Following is a poem I wrote after the election of 1990. It explains why I have no great faith that we will ever get rid of pork-barrel congresspersons…
Throw the Rascals Out!
Throw Congress rascals out, we said.
Oust Congress from their featherbed.
Give every congressman the heft,
While we’ve still got a country left.
That’s what we said, but at the polls
We quickly forgot all those goals,
And re-elected one and all
The rascals that we cussed last fall.
We, for all our bolden chatter,
Elected those who fill our platter.
Your congressman’s a rascal, true,
For what he steals, he steals for you.
Mine steals for me, you understand,
And that makes him a fellow grand.
I’d vote yours out if but I could.
But keep mine where he does me good.
We vote like dogs, we should atone;
We elect those who throw us bones.
We wag our tails by far the harder
For those who put stuff in our larder.
Ralph Hood
Yankee Bob–
By golly, we agree! I once wrote a poem that says exactly that! I’ll see if I can find it and put it on here.
Thanx for writing, and I’;ll see you at breakfast late this month.
Ralph Hood
Ralph, as long as you realize a politicians #1 job is to get re-elected so that he can continue to have an income its all understandable. MY politician that brings money to MY town is a hero, its all the others that are money wasting crooks.
Mike–
Thanks for writing.
I am beyond trying to figure out if we “had” to have the bill as the pols insisted. But I am—as my mother used to say—just “plumb mad” at the fact that they couldn’t forget the pork for once. One writer called it a “well larded” bill. Wish I’d said that. And I may yet!
BTW, I have been nailed out of jail once and jumped out of airplanes several times. Neither was this expenses.
Thanks again,
Ralph Hood
My Congressman, Jack Kingston (R) GA, voted against the bailout bill both times. BTW, what does this term, “bailout” mean?
In the air it means “hitting the silk”
In a boat, it means getting rid of the water.
I guess this is more like when you bail someone out of jail. In which case, we should have let them stay there until they sobered up.
Mike
William–
Whew! I was so glad to see your favorable comment. I worried lest the first comment would lash me with razor wire!
BTW, I can no longer accept being called Republican, Democrat, liberal, or conservative. All of those terms are now saddled with too many conditions for me to tote.
Thanks so much for writing.
Ralph Hood
Ralph, you are completely right. My mom was a democrat and my dad was a republican: I am neither as neither party does a good job representing me. I used to say, ‘I am a fiscal republican and social democrat’. Not anymore!!! Obviously we haven’t sent a message to DC that caught the attention of anyone, so the question is who do we look to? The best answer to that question that I can come up with is our local leaders. We need to spend more time looking at our City/County leaders as they will be the people that put pressure on our federal politicians. I knew of a really great person in the Hose of Reps from Minn that didn’t run for re-elect because of frustration, how sad. I think his last name was Little or Small? Regardless, there is good people in our politics and we need to encourage them otherwise we get what were getting.