Say you’re on a bus. The passengers are from completely different backgrounds and beliefs, different political views, different walks of life. It’s a little uncomfortable but you bear with it. It’s the only mode of transportation you have and you need to get where you’re going.
Then, suddenly, the bus driver slumps over the wheel, unconscious, unable to control the vehicle. It begins careening wildly down the highway, heading dangerously close to a steep cliff. Everyone on board is in peril. What do you do? Certainly you’d want to help get control, right? You wouldn’t stop and tell the others, “actually, I don’t agree with the way you’re going about this, so I’m just going to sit here until you do it my way”, would you?
Well that, my friends, is what’s happening at the helm of this country, and it really is becoming very dangerous.
As I started writing this last week, the Dow Jones had spiraled below 11,000. Again. A strong Monday pushed it just above that plateau – barely. But it’s still down nearly 15% in the last two months. Investors worldwide were fearing that a long slump was on the horizon, and some economists opined that there might not be a clear way we can avoid another recession. And the reason? Our leadership can’t find a way to get together and craft a solution.
Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times columnist, wrote in his editorial “Roll up sleeves, or limp on?” last Thursday that “My fear is that both parties have just started their 2012 campaigns. In which case the rest of us will just sit here, orphans of a political system gone mad, hunkering down for a bad century.” It’s good reading, here. And timely.
When you combine that with the fact that no jobs have been added, locally or nationally (meaning virtually no one is hiring), that the median income in Wisconsin plummeted 14.5% from 1999 to 2010, and that in Milwaukee specifically median income dropped an astonishing 22% over that same period, it begins to resemble your worst nightmare.
So you’d think with all this happening, our leaders would join together and try to save the country instead of worrying about furthering their own agendas. Nope. Not happening. President Obama, who is supposed to be in charge, has attempted a few baby steps to offer solutions but has done almost nothing to stem the tide, and his Democratic constituents are bailing in startling numbers. And the Republicans are in an equal mess, with Speaker Boehner unable to get even remote support from his more conservative majority members. Approval ratings for Congress are at nearly all time lows.
I don’t think I’m going to make it to the end of this century, so I’d like to request that instead of ignoring the problem and campaigning, our elected leadership get together NOW and try to find a solution to the problem. It can’t be hard. That’s what they’re elected to do, right? Or have they forgotten that mantra?
No one at the top seems to notice, or care, that the bus is out of control, screeching towards the side of the road and down a cliff. But they’d better start caring or this whole financial thing could head for the toilet fast.
I really don’t give a rip who is elected next year, to be honest. In fact I already can’t wait until the elections are finally over. I care about now and getting the bus under control. Because by the time there are elections again, we could all be in so much trouble that it wouldn’t matter if Cookie Monster were driving the bus… or running the country. Hmm. Actually, that’s not a bad idea, Ernie.
