A Do Wrong Congress

Look at what congress did and did not do before they rushed off for another recess. Food stamps cuts for millions and farm subsidies improved for big agri-business. Unbelievable!

When our founding fathers created the intricacies of our constitution they envisioned our representatives and our senators to be citizen legislators.

The theory was that these elected representatives would come to congress, do their job for the good of the whole, and then go home and live life among their peers of neighbors and friends.

Today we have a career congress. Congress has evolved into a gaggle of professional politicians who come to congress and do everything they can to stay there. And why not, congress has voted themselves a magnificent retirement system that is not tied to the social security system or the health care system that the rest of us have.

When the late senator Barry Goldwater, from Arizona, ran for the GOP nomination for President in 1964 he was seen as extreme in some of his pronouncements. He once said, “extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice.”

I disagree with that kind of thinking and with the extreme thinking of the extreme conservative intransigent representatives today who profess that it is “their way or no way.” That is not the way of liberty. It is the way of legislative coercion.

It is time to take back our congress. It is time for citizens to reclaim the right of consensus legislation.