Jack Cafferty is blunt and plain spoken. I watched his special on CNN yesterday where he reviewed examples of why he says, “This country of ours is beginning to circle the drain.”
He said a lot during his one hour special on Broken Government. Here are some extracts from the transcript of what he said. I think his points are worthy of serious consideration. By the way, if you live in Nevada you might be interested to know that Cafferty is from Reno.
- Seventy-five percent think that our government officials are dishonest — that’s great.
- A recent poll found just eight percent of Americans think that incumbents should be reelected.
- Gerrymandering congressional districts to insure incumbents get re-elected (Here in Nevada we’re almost certain to gain a congressional district from the 2010 Census. You can bet there will be efforts to gerrymander the new district, which is likely to be carved out of Dean Heller’s district #2, which comprises primarily the rurals of Nevada.)
- Vote them out of office. It’s up to us to vote them out of office. There may be no better example of our “Broken Government” that what’s being called the blanket hold. That’s when a senator stalls a president’s nominees to
pressure the White House on an often unrelated issue. For example, the Obama administration blasted Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama for putting a hold on nearly 50 nominees. (Don’t ignore the discussion about Senator Kit Bond of Missouri either. He does the same thing.
- Why does health care cost so much? How about a $1,200 stapler for example. And there are more examples given by Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
- Twenty-five lobbyists for every single member of the House and Senate. They spend almost $3.5 billion buying influence of Senators and Representatives.
- The cost of retired members of Congress, who can retire at age 50. “While the rest of us wonder whether we’ve saved enough for our retirements, former senators and representatives can count on a generous, guaranteed pension for life, and it comes right out of our pockets,” says Cafferty.
- Recent CNN polls, 86 percent of Americans think our government is broken, 75 percent of Americans think government officials are dishonest. When you look to the future of this country, what do you see,? Cafferty asked Ron Paul, who says bankruptcy is coming, government is broke and doesn’t work.
- Independents. Both major political parties want them, but in many states Independents are essentially locked out of the political process.
- Countless government agencies full of countless bureaucrats busy enforcing countless rules, countless regulation while spending countless billions of dollars. So, how did the geniuses at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — that would be NTSA for short — did not notice that Toyota was making cars with accelerators that raced wildly out of control?
- Frozen government. There are 290 pieces of legislation that have gone through the House of Representatives that are sitting, collecting dust in the Senate. They’re doing nothing with any of this
- The symbolism of the Tea Party as a sign of discontent.
Cafferty leaves us with his final thought. “At the beginning of the program, we told you that nearly nine out of 10 Americans say the government is broken. But there is a glimmer of hope — 81 percent of you also believe that government that’s supposed to be of, by and for the people can be fixed. We’ll see.”
Yes, indeed we’ll see. But until voters bite the bullet and stop electing and re-electing congressional representatives that insist on representing special interest groups because they need their campaign money contributions to stay in office we’ll get nowhere.
Read the entire transcript here.
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