I thought about what was going on in the rest of the world at that moment. No country but ours has equal access to their leaders. Far t0o many of them still have women in chains, a formal or informal caste system that locks people into a tiny number of choices, and a lack of the most basic tools they need to function. But mostly what I am profoundly grateful for about our great nation is accountability, flexibility and the willingness to change.
I often hear gripes about the same leaders promising the same things with no discernible difference between Republicans and Democrats. I find this astounding. Surely there was a difference George Washington and Richard Nixon. Or between Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. If John F. Kennedy were alive today, he would probably be a Republican (based on his stances and voting record) and the hero of the Republican party, Abraham Lincoln, actually looked more like a Democrat. Society is finally starting to understand that the founding fathers wanted restrictions on activist judges and wanted our lawmakers to disclose and discuss their plans.
Budgets aren't made by Presidents (although he gets to set part of the agenda and will take almost all the blame from everybody who doesn't like what is and isn't getting funded). I got to check off all kinds of names on my ballot- state and county officials as well as federal, issues, mandates, tax and legal rights issues. We have a State Secretary of State (who guarantees free and fair elections, although I did have to convince one woman his role was indeed NOT to handle Colorado's numerous foreign relationships) and a State Treasurer (who will decide a few little things like where we're going to invest the 19 billion dollars passing through the coffers this year.
I get a voice in all kinds of things like whether I want to pay more taxes for the programs they're going to fund. Congressman Coffman made an interesting point that raising taxes and cutting crucial benefits aren't mutually exclusive, and told a story that when he was the State Treasurer he made an emergency loan to a failing school on the condition that he be allowed to take control of their books until the loan was repaid. According to him, without cutting a single teacher or changing teacher/student ratios, he was able to axe out 45% of their administrative and overhead costs and get their budget back in line.
The two congressional candidates in the districts next door have similar plans. In CD-7, small business owner and city councilman Ryan Frazier talks about a different kind of stimulus package. The Fed is paying above market interest rates for banks keeping deposits over and above their required legal minimums, which means that money is doing nothing for the economy and costing the government even more interest as we pay them to hold it. He proposes we lower the rate to zero, to encourage them to earn a superior return on it through loans or by investing in businesses. In CD-1, Dr. Mike Fallon talks about bringing both his medical and business expertise to the issue of health care, particularly what the transfer of patients who appropriately belong in an Urgent Care facility not a fully staffed emergency room and the elimination of fraud in Medicare and other government programs would do to the costs.
A small business owner is in the best position to talk about how to "reopen Colorado for business" and a practicing emergency room physician may just be "the cure for Congress."
One thing for sure, your leaders want to meet you. I've heard many excuses from people who yell at their TV's but won't get off the couch, everything from "they don't care unless you have a check in hand" (not true) to "I'm just way too busy" (also something I have a hard time believing).
So today, this week, get to it- go to a rally, call, email, find them on Facebook. Learn what your leaders are doing, saying and thinking about. Find out how they actually voted, don't take the word of a friend or a commercial.
To quote the rallying cry of patriots everywhere: "Freedom isn't free. Just ask any soldier."
