I am not really put off by the headlines in the USA TODAY about 10% of Congress being part of the top 1% wealth group. You have to expect that since it costs so much to get elected today. You will never get equal/proportional economic representation of Congress to the populace at large anyway. And what do you expect we all want to be rich and successful.
Another issue is elected officials need the money to shield their private lives from the press. Most of us have way too many ghosts in the closet to really survive close scrutiny of our private lives to get elected. The fact that only the rich can do it shouldn't be a surprise.
I don't like the facts above, but it is what it is.
The real issue is can we find even 1% of our country truly capable of creating public policy that would actually benefit the country at large. What is scary is that most of the people in charge are completely clueless about the middle class nowadays and it has nothing to do with the fact they are rich, but the fact they are out of touch with our country. It doesn't take a Harvard economist to realize most Americans are struggling and things are getting worse. Yet our leaders tend to believe the scant few who create policy for their own benefit.
There are some productive think tanks, some authors, some academics that have good ideas, but none of this gets put into a productive policy program. Why? because most Americans don't even know what they want, no that isn't the answer, Why? because our current Congress is under the influence of lobbyists, not really the answer either, but a sympton of the problem, Why, the truth is our country is too big and too complicated for answers, not really either. We have the greatest system in the world, but no one knows how to actually put it into action.
The truth is you can find many good answers to our problems if you search long and hard enough. No one wants to make the effort to put it all together and that is what our country needs. The truth is the solutions are simple, it is the action in putting them in place that we are missing.
(this is one of those nights where by the time I sit down to write all my ideas from earlier today have faded to the dark recesses of my memory and since I don't get to write till late, I can't finish the thought)
Anyway the purpose was to illustrate that it is not being rich that hurts us, it is our Congress not being able to truly look at policy as it applies to the whole that is hurting us.
And to the "leaderless" occupy wall street group,believe it or not there are good reasons to have direction from leadership. Tell your leadership to quit hiding and come out and really do something. I am not for all your ideas, but things do need to be shaken up now and we need new leaders in Congress that will listen to people who can actually produce realistic policy that works.
For example, we don't need more regulation, but more accountability for actions. Take the MF Global blow up. why not hold Corizine responsible in a court of law for his actions. IE new laws that deal with financial irresponsibility, something similar to what occupy group wants, but put real teeth in it, he is too rich to get away with retiring with no pension. He needs to go to jail for his actions. same for CEOs that produce by products when dumped in rivers that create cancer in people downstream, screw suing corporations,but put them in jail for assault and manslaughter. People will figure out real quick that being responsible is less expensive than over regulation. Many corporate leaders say regulations hinder growth, well their actions created them, so they need to learn they cannot have their cake and eat it too.
And if you look around, there are people putting together policies that protect people, hold corporations accountable, that can do a much better job of writing this than I. Lets step up as a people and find the 1% we need.
The above is only a simplistic example of what I would really like to put together as working policy.
Or going back to the title, the real problem isn't they are rich, it is they don't know what they are doing. (this goes for Democrats and Republicans)
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