Today, I was ready to troll for a blog post; I really had nothing brewing, not even an inkling (to reference my good friend Ken Mueller). Then, I read the second headline in this morning’s Wall Street Journal (the paper version, mind you), and the post came rolling in. (I purposely missed last night’s news as I’m trying not to get all discombobulated with the sickness plaguing U.S. leaders).
But, there it was…a slap in the face…the President of the U.S. asked to address Congress on Sept. 7, 2011; the Speaker of the House said no, you ought to do it a day later (in direct conflict with the NFL game).
That’s it. There’s my blog post concept, and the negative emotions came flooding in to wreak havoc on my morning coffee and dry bran muffin I made this weekend.
Because I’ve been letting the world’s state of affairs bug me, and I’ve been ranting a bit (see my Monday Meanderings), I’m going to turn this latest stupidity (the likes that haven’t been seen, I’m told, since Woodrow Wilson was president in the 1910s) into how not to run your business.
Imagine Company X has a president with successors interested in taking over that top-dog position. There are employees across the U.S. and they manufacture widgets. The employees are restless because the leadership of Company X is constantly bickering and doing it publicly as well as behind closed doors (if that can ever happen).
Employees are Facebooking their malcontent, and water-cooler gossip among the white-collar shirts is heated. The president of Company X requests an all-staff meeting, and the management team suggests all staff should not attend; they can watch streaming video of the presentation instead.
Should this difference of timing, medium and attendance be publicized for all the world to see, or should this be discussed and negotiated behind closed doors until everyone can comfortably agree?
You know the answer; I don’t need to tell you how we play in business. But, I do, apparently, need to tell the leaders of the United States, and here’s what I’d like to say:
** We The People in order to form a more perfect union, would like the president of the U.S and his Congress to get the flip along.
** When there are differences so ridiculously inane, like timing of a speech, keep it to yourselves and work it out so We The People don’t need to participate in your bickering.
** Hire a team of therapists to sit with each of you to curb your hostility for one another so We The People can begin to raise our heads proudly that we’re all working toward one goal — to shore up the foundation this country has worked so hard to attain.
** Put on your mud clothes and hit the streets of Brattleboro, Vermont, where my friends live, and get your hands dirty — TOGETHER — so We The People can begin to see some unity of action on our behalf.
** Read all the blog posts and comments from We The People about how embarrassed and absolutely, positively fed up your constituents are about your behavior. Begin to mend relationships that benefit the jobless, the homeless, those with medical needs, those under water with mortgages, those paying all their taxes, the children without milk, and others who are heading into a downward spiral due to price increases everywhere in this country.
Perhaps, Mr. President and Mr. Boehner, if you heed one item on this list, that would be a start. Maybe if you just read it and noodle on the sentiment at the grassroots level, you’ll know that both of you are heading out the door because We The People are just plain old fed up.
Aren’t we?
Jayme – great post. There are a hundred and one different political rants I could make with this, but I’ll refrain. I do have to wonder though how the administration thought they could schedule this the same time as the GOP debate and think that a Congress that has been disfunctional and hostile would go along. Made the WH staff look like a bunch of rank amatuers, in my opinion.
The larger issue though is the point you made. We as a country have serious issues. Real people are affected. And we need serious leadership and honest-to-goodness solutions. Rhetoric and talking points won’t cut it anymore. It’s going to require cooperation and teamwork. And the last thing we needed to see was this joke of a food fight over a scheduling issue. Epic fail.
I admire everyone who knows more about the inner workings of governmental decisions than I. I read a headline and go off; shame on me! There are many aspects to this situation, and you raise one key point, David. My political leanings aside, I am sick of them ALL. Rancorous, bullying childishness. Thank you for sharing your thoughts; very much appreciate.
I admire everyone who knows more about the inner workings of governmental decisions than I. I read a headline and go off; shame on me! There are many aspects to this situation, and you raise one key point, David. My political leanings aside, I am sick of them ALL. Rancorous, bullying childishness. Thank you for sharing your thoughts; very much appreciate.
I admire everyone who knows more about the inner workings of governmental decisions than I. I read a headline and go off; shame on me! There are many aspects to this situation, and you raise one key point, David. My political leanings aside, I am sick of them ALL. Rancorous, bullying childishness. Thank you for sharing your thoughts; very much appreciate.
The speakerr is aways on an EGO trip and wants to show he is maco. Postponing the speech I guess gets him the satisfaction of doing this. It is too bad that he has just alianated the whole os Wisconsin and Louisiana. Shame!
Well, hello, there Dr. J. Soulati! So great to see you here sharing, and yes…it’s a bit tiresome that machismo behavior is the will of the way these days. People hated Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House; however, I do not recall such behavior being aired publicly in the past? (Perhaps I open myself up for many examples where that did happen with that statement!) XO
Great stuff, but once again we’re asking for the impossible. Don’t you realize that once you enter the inner-beltway around DC, all the rules of logic are suspended?
L-O-G-I-C — the inner beltway is unable to even comprehend that word, Ken.
This makes me think of that old adage: let’s run the government like a business. Erm, no. Let’s not, and not say we did, either. There shouldn’t be competition and capitalistic friction in a body whose purpose is supposed to be in assisting the people it represents. Does anybody really feel assisted by this childish tripe on the Hill?
“Erm, NO!” To take your spot-on assessment. Tripe, like that word, too. I’m not sure how the government should be run — like a business or not; like a team or not, like a not-for-profit, or not…IT’S NOT RUNNING! And, as we’ve all said before — who will step up to do it any differently? It’s up to us, says @GiniDietrich … got a thought on that, Emma?
I vote team or nonprofit. But then again, I’m one of those suburban white girls who’s practically a Communist, haha. I would really like to see our foundational governing body operating out of the best interests for Main Street, not Wall Street, to invoke a cliche.
And I would love to step up and do it differently. Can I count on your vote? 😉
You think, you’re kidding! YES! Count on me and my vote…let’s discuss. What can we do to ensure the truth is exposed and Main Street not the beltway is on the frontline.
Amen Jayme!I love the discussion – and of course, I have an opinion. Here are the facts as I see them:
1) The federal budget is a mess.
2)The federal gov’t is dis***ctional. (I refuse to put any *fun* in that word)
3) 14m (+/-) people are unemployed.
The way to balance the budget is NOT to slash government. It is NOT to increase taxes.The budget is a system of income and outgo. The income side of that equation is a result of this:(Number of taxpayers x effective tax rate) – deductions, – cost of running gov’t, – cost of running wars, – fraud/waste/etc
Many of the 14 million unemployed are receiving benefits, and most of the unemployed 14 million, ARE NOT paying taxes. (except the misfortunate who are raiding their 401k’s etc)To fix the budget requires increasing employment. Period. It requires adding enough jobs, monthly, for several years, to lower the 14m unemployed to a MUCH lower number. The USA is adding jobs like crazy, but it isn’t fast enough. And NOBODY emphasizes that the US has added over 1.1 million jobs in 2011. Why not?? I checked those stats a few months ago, and they’ve continued to impress me. https://www.adpemploymentreport.com/report_analysis_archive.aspx Here’s an overview of USA Job Growth this year.
Dec to Jan 2011 189,000
Jan to Feb 217,000
Feb to Mar 201,000
Mar to Apr 177,000
Apr to May 38,000
May to Jun 157,000
Jun to Jul 114,000
Jul to Aug 91,000
To erase the deficit requires adding jobs that pay enough to increase the tax base. That job creation has to essentially ramp up to 150-225,000 new jobs monthly, and stay there for a few years. Here’s how that can happen:The Federal Gov’t can either help create jobs, or it can avoid helping, but either way, it has to stop being obstructionist. Compromise and statesmanship have to become highly valued again “unity of action” to quote Jayme above. Senators, Congresspersons, and the President need to all work together to do the things that benefit the country – not the things that benefit their party, their district, their reelection and their own selfish personal motives. We didn’t elect them to work on their relection strategy. From the top, the President needs to start digging in and doing what his principles tell him to do, not what his advisors and polls tell him will win 2012. Senators and Congressmen need to do the same. They all should ignore their respective parties, when appropriate, and create and vote for legislation that helps create jobs. Period. If that requires increasing the debt, short-term, so be it. Jobs will pay down that debt, eventually. Is that a secret? I’d argue to each of them, individually, that increasing JOBS will also get people reelected more effectively than fat reelection bank accounts.
If they are smart, maybe they can figure out ways to increase jobs WHILE doing things that need to be done. How about creating a national energy policy that helps us decrease dependence on foreign oil while creating jobs? How about figuring out a way to make INsourcing profitable for companies so less of our jobs go away? How about finding incentives that foster creation of thousands and millions of production jobs so that companies value job-creation in the US? Finally- if the federal gov’t is too inept, (and there aren’t enough therapists in the known world) perhaps some national leader(s) should start working with Governors across the country… For the country to add 200k jobs per month, each Governor needs to add 4,000 jobs. Well, perhaps California, Texas and New York each add 10,000 monthly, while Maine, Rhode Island and smaller states each add 1000… The point is that federally elected officials could split the load into 50 manageable slices of a pie, and help state-officials to reach monthly milestones. This would benefit the COUNTRY. The deficit and federal debt would take care of themselves, and all of that success would happen despite the petty, childish, jamokes and jamocha in D.C. *sigh* oops. I ran over again. Sorry Jayme. Did I mention that I agree with you? We, the People, deserve better, and if it doesn’t come from the people we elected last time… we are incredibly likely to elect others next time…
Where’s your blog? I welcome your blog post, I mean comments right here! AMEN, INDEED, John! This job thing has always baffled me; who’s responsible for creating jobs? We have governors refusing federal funds b/c they are democratic monies; refusing highway construction dollars and railroad dollars and denying set up of health care exchanges. Again, there’s so much that happens behind the scenes with these issues, I shouldn’t even mention this stuff without knowing more.
Thanks, John, for sharing these facts. Very excellent numbers re jobs creation; of course, that story is not told — it’s the negative side that leads.
G’Day Jayme,
As my father once said to me when I was a teenager; “Don’t worry son. They’re only politicians.” We denizens of Down Unda-Marcus Sheridan can’t spell ‘under”-understand that sport is more important than , well…., anything.
Our Federal Parliament stops for ‘The Race That Stops A Nation”- the Melbourne Cup. And any politician who doesn’t grasp the importance of Football, particularly Australian football, doesn’t get re-elected.
Makes perfect sense to most of us. We currently have an incompetent Federal government. But September is footy finals time. Nothing much will happen until October.
OK! OK! You may think we’re weird. But we have a lot of fun.
Regards
Leon
Dear Leon…you forgot to tell me to have fun, too; that’s what you usually do in signing off. So, I’m gonna interpret you having fun as me having fun, as well. That said, not having too much fun these days allowing the world stage and US childishness get under my skin. The agier I get, the more of a worry wart I become — that’s where my wrinkles come from. Love, Jayme
If I were POTUS I would take Mr. Boehner out to the woodshed and give him an example of executive power. Not a big of fan of Obama, but this crap has got to stop. Like or dislike the man respect the office. In the real world I would fire these fools and get people who understand that sometimes we work with people that we don’t like.
Irks me more than I can tell you.
A to the Men!
SPOT ON, The Jack…so absolutely agree with the lack of obvious respect anywhere these days. And, so, we parents must instill it in our children, and it’s a challenging task.
As always, thought-provoking, Jayme. However, there are a few other factors:
1. There is a very basic difference between economics and politics. Economics essentially consists of voluntary transactions. Politics (read:government) is force. It involves, largely, elected officials striving for self-preservation (re-election) by deal making, “tits for tats” (no pun intended). It involves appeals to constituencies which, sometimes just do not understand business, or have an innate dislike for or fear of freedom. Freedom is hard because it requires people to, by and large, fend for themselves. That said, politicians cannot get elected if they just say to their constituents, “suck it up”. Instead, to keep their own jobs, they have to bring home the bacon to their states and districts. This is done through make-work projects, “stimulus” packages, or otherwise. These are all funded, necessarily, by the rest of the public either by taxation or by inflating the currency (printing more money) which itself reduces the value of every dollar and therefore drives up prices. We have repeatedly seen the effects of that. Not good.
2. Economics, specifically, free-market economics, creates wealth and jobs. A business cannot survive for long if it does not cater to the needs and demands of the marketplace with relative freedom from government control (other than health, safety and fraud). While doing so, it creates jobs.
3. When economics and politics collide, force (read:government) usually prevails, at least initially. Hence, the “stimulus” packages and similar of recent years. Despite promising to create jobs, they were miserable failures. At the risk of being branded a cynic, one might almost think that they were intended, at least in part, to lay the groundwork for re-election. But, I digress… Although ill-conceived from the start, I suppose that blame cannot be placed wholly on the President or on Congress. Blame can be placed on the idea that politics can and should be a factor in “curing” economic ills. It is sort of like taking more of the same drug to cure a prior overdose.
The net of this is that political compromise is not always the best answer, and rarely in the realm of economic issues, including job creation. Freedom and free markets are good. Divergence from them is not. More often than not, “We the People” would be better off left alone.
I’m so honored you’re here, Luke, especially providing your intense and expansive background and intelligence on this topic. I’m going to have to step far away from any response and ask my pals @johnakerson:disqus and @SteelToad:disqus to chime in as they’re far better economists with more spot-on and educated political opinions than I.
I find my need to put logic into this calculitic equation only produces more frustration on my part. I cannot understand, and the end game is finally a vote against the candidate who has rankled the most. Sigh.
Can’t comment on this one, Jayme, politics makes me too angry. I don’t disagree with you but I started to get agita reading the other comments, so I’m going to abstain.
Bang on stuff. Thanks for sharing… Love to see more from you. I have alrady bookmarked this site. Keep it up. 🙂 Good Luck. Team PC Support
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