Recently President Obama said it was a shameful day in Washington
because the Senate voted against background checks as a response to gun
violence. When the majority in the Senate voted for a bill that 90 percent of
the American public supported and yet a minority of 46 Senators who represented
the NRA won because 60 is the new majority for dysfunctional government to
exist.
Two weeks later there was yet another shameful day in Washington when
Congress voted on legislation to remove air traffic from the budget ax imposed
by sequestration. Not one Senator voted against it and only 41 House members
voted against the bill. Republican Sen.Collins gushed on prime time network news about getting something
done when Congress works together and Republican Eric Cantor claimed victory for
the Republicans thereby defining his party as the party that ignores the
suffering of others.
Two years ago President Obama said: "to restore fiscal responsibility, we
all need to share in the sacrifice, but we don't have to sacrifice the America
we believe in". Last week he had an opportunity to make us believe we were all
Americans and we were all in this together. Instead he participated in another
shameful day in Washington when he rubber stamped legislation from a Congress
that created our enormous debt by wasting billions of dollars waging wars on
terrorism, drugs, etc., cutting taxes on "the job creators" who didn't create
any jobs with that windfall then bailing out Wall St and holding no one
accountable.
Everybody knows what Congress lacks the courage to admit: that they worked
together because they were both going to benefit by removing air traffic from
the sequestration as were their corporate sponsors in the airline industry and
all the businesses depending on air travel .
Congress no longer wanted to suffer
the consequences of their actions, they no longer wanted to make that sacrifice
and the hell with everybody else - the young, the poor, the sick and the elderly
who would still have to sacrifice more for another yet shameful day in
Washington.
After nearly four decades of shameful days in dysfunctional and divided
Washington we have become a country in which the "haves" get more and have to
sacrifice less in taxes, travel, in service to their country, especially on the
battlefield, while those who "have some" will have to do with less and join the
"have nots" picking up the tab by having to sacrifice more once again but
whatever one's perception of the America, we believe the recent shameful days
proves it wasn't sacrificed it was sold to the highest bidders to protect their
interests at the expense of the rest of us. We might all be Americans but this
latest string of shameful days in Washington has proven when sacrifice isn't
shared we're no longer in this together.
