ONCE UPON A TIME, IN WASHINGTON

Once upon a time, our government worked together for the common good. The bill of rights (first ten amendments) was added to the Constitution in order to reach unity of purpose. In my lifetime I witnessed, for better or worse, Tip O'Neil working with Ronald Reagan, Ted Kennedy working with George W Bush and even Bill Clinton working with Newt Gingrich.

Enter the era of Pelosi. She with stalwarts such as Waxman, Waters, Frank, Murtha and on the Senate side, Reid, Schumer, Dodd, Leahy and Boxer have succeeded in turning governing into a winner take all game. If they, with Obama, truly believed this is a great country, why would they be calling for FUNDAMENTAL change?

There certainly are problems that need to be addressed. Most were either caused by the congress or were a failure of government agencies to exercise oversight, thus allowing companies to abuse the public trust. I find it difficult to believe that any fix would require over 2,000 pages of legalize to correct. Why the mad rush to pass legislation to correct a problem that took a hundred years to develop? Is the answer simply to get it passed before anyone knows what they are doing?

The first step in problem solving is to determine who owns the problem. If it were a public company whose problem was rooted in prior ownership, it is the present owner that bears responsibility. In the case of our country it is the present Congress and administration. I wonder why I can find no legislation that makes it criminal for a President or Congressman to lie to the public.

Joel