Well, 2005 is nearly over. And with 2006 comes thoughts of midterm elections. I'm sure it won't take very long for the airwaves to become polluted with commercials for your (most or least) favorite representative to Washington. But before we begin this propaganda cycle, I think we need to take a good hard look at what has been going on. No, I'm not going to sit here and lay the ills of the world at this administration's feet. There are plenty of liberals to do that. Besides that, I'd like to focus on reality. And the reality is that our representatives, by and large, have been paying us a lot of lip service without really doing anything. Except for the bill that they just passed to relax restrictions on refinery building, I can't think of much of anything Congress has managed to get done recently. Oh, I'm sure there have been hundreds of little "pet project" bills that they have managed to get through, but there are some major issues that are being swept under the rug here and need to be addressed. I think that we need to use these midterm elections to send a message to our representatives. We need to let them know that they no longer control the issues. These are the things that we are concerned about and they have two more years to start doing something about them before we start voting them out of office.

With that in mind, I have come up with a small list of issues that I believe need attention. These are mainly issues that have been brought up, talked about and raised as standards by many representatives, then quickly hidden before any real action has had to be taken.

1. What ever happened to Social Security reform? Of course we all realize that the Democrats don't even want to talk about this, but hey, we're the majority party. It's time to do something before the whole thing collapses like the house of cards that it is. We have already forced the Democrats to admit there is a problem, but then we didn't do anything about it. Why haven't we pressed that advantage to actually get something done?

2. School Vouchers have been a hot topic for politicians to run on for quite some time now. Let's do something besides pay them lip service.

3. All (or most) of our Republicans have been spending like Democrats for the past several years. The last highway bill is a travesty that should never have been allowed to pass through a Republican congress. If they're afraid of holding up an important bill just because it's stuffed full of pork, we need to let them know that we will fully support their decision. If it's just because they want to spend like everyone else, then they need to know that we will no longer support that. Either way, they need to get the message loud and clear that it well beyond time to get government spending under control.

4. When trying to find the money for Hurricane Katrina relief, several Republicans stood up to say that it was time to take control of government spending. There were several good proposals on the table at the time. After their initial press coverage, these things seem to have disappeared. Is that from lack of support? If so, why are our Republican representatives showing so much fiscal irresponsibility? Let's get these proposals back out and start slashing at some fat.

5. When are we going to show that we value human life? I'm not talking about outlawing abortion tomorrow. I'm too much of a realist to think that's going to happen soon (if at all). But there were so many representatives ready to jump on the bandwagon when it looked politically expedient for them during the Terri Schiavo issue. Now we don't hear a peep out of them. If you were so concerned about protecting the Terri Schiavos of this nation, why aren't you doing something about it. If you don't feel that it's the federal government's place to do anything about it, why aren't you urging states to take action?

Overall, I have been quite disappointed in the actions taken by our supposed majority. With elections just around the corner, we need to make it more than clear that we can and will rally around someone who will give us more than talking points. After all, if I wanted all my money stolen and to be lied to constantly, I'd vote Democrat.

Posted by: Drew at 09:57 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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