PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

CONGRESSMEN AND WOMEN TO CONTINUE COLLECTING PAY CHECKS

As a former long time Capitol Hill reporter, I can tell you without a doubt that Congress takes care of itself, first, last and always. Does anyone remember that one of the new Tea Pot supported Congresspeople was complaining a couple of months back that his health insurance plan didn't kick in for three weeks? That shows where Congress is on regard to sacrifice. They are on the public dole and they want to keep it that way. Many have an vastly exaggerated idea of their own importance, attitudes which are puffed up by the king like treatment they receive on the Hill and during foreign junkets.

There should be no mistake about why a shutdown is close to happening: the Republicans are using the continuing resolution process to try to get specific cutbacks in programs they have been unable to kill by other means. They are not seeking budget savings, they are seeking budget revenge, because, even during the first six years of Bush, they were unable to get their shopping list of right wing cuts approved and signed.

On a personal level, I consider a government pause embarrassing for the country and driven by childish impulses and, indeed, by lack of true patriotism for our nation. We are once against going to look like jerks around the world. During the Clinton administration, the Republican cry was this: what would children think of a president like him? He’s setting a bad example for the next generation, Republicans claimed, and they made certain that every student in America knew the details of that example. What are the school kids supposed to think now, not just of a Congress that can't resolve its problems, but one that refuses to do so for petty reasons? Where adult responsibility be demonstrated here?

Living in a democracy means accepting that you can't have your way about everything. During my lifetime, it has seemed to me that I can't have my way about anything as the right and far right escalates their demands for lower taxes on the wealthy and fewer services for all. Yet, I support democracy and try to forebear some of its results. It gets harder to do that all the time.

Someone should take the Members of Congress out on a long weekend and lecture them on these simple facts. Compromise is necessary for democracy to be successful and for its continuance. If you sincerely don't like the compromises that have been made, ask the voters to back you fully in changing the laws.

The Republicans are trying to use their blocking power on House votes to cherry pick items in the budget they don’t like. They are going shopping for chopping while the country floats slowly down a river toward hell. Yes, we need long term, reasonable solutions to over spending our way through life, but targeting key programs one side doesn't like for drastic cutbacks is a stick up, a robbery. Obama should let this one ride and see if the country catches on, and approves, what the Republicans are attempting.

Doug Terry 4.7.11

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