Mail Bag

Is anyone minding the store?

Posted

To the Editor:

As our nation’s problems go unattended week after week, they continue to fester and grow.

On the rare occasion that senators and representatives take a break from shouting their congressional mantra, “My party is always right, the opposition party is always wrong,” it’s not to focus on solving our problems, but on raising money for their reelection campaigns. They know that filling the campaign coffers is mandatory if they ever hope to achieve their number one public service objective: a job for life.

Selfless public servant has become an oxymoron.

Is this any way to run a railroad? It’s certainly no way to remain a viable nation!

I weep for younger generations because the not-too-distant future has our nation dealing with a stronger China, a stronger Russia, and a national debt that squeezes virtually everything out of the budget except interest on that debt and defense spending.

That leaves precious little for education, food and drug safety, retirement, health care, law enforcement, clean air and water, infrastructure, and all the other things we rely on the government to provide. Living in a financially-shackled nation like that will make the hardships of the Coronavirus feel like a day at the spa!

As long as the electorate keeps returning the current confrontational, self-absorbed do-nothings to Washington, the electorate’s best interests will never supplant those of the senators and representatives. I have no kids or grandkids so any dog I have in this fight is a small one.

And given my longstanding sedentary and omnivorous lifestyle, the duration of my exposure to these predicted hardships is certainly minimal. This is a good thing because the political climate, which is the guiding force of our society, is going to get worse long before it gets better.