Some people are trying though:
A new petition gaining ground on the White House website calls on President Obama to cancel his estimated $4 million vacation and devote the money instead to helping victims of Hurricane Sandy.
The petition, which was created just two days ago, had 872 signatures as of 8:45 am ET this morning and is potentially be on its way to garnering the 25,000 signatures in 30 days required to elicit a response from the White House.
Although the victims of Sandy certainly need the help, this isn’t the way to do it. (This is.)
If Barack Obama and Congress (the opposite of progress) stay in town, they will drag out the farce otherwise known as the “negotiations” to avert the “fiscal cliff”. Our media has terrorised the American people over the dire consequences of a group of legal events happening: the end of the “Bush tax cuts” (which Obama himself agreed to extend once) and the initiation of “sequestration” where the government actually stops spending money on something.
Personally I think the fiscal cliff thing is rubbish. First, we lived with Clinton tax rates for years without disaster. Second, chances are that anything this dysfunctional political system comes up with will be worse than the “cliff” that would happen if nothing else were done.
The problem here is simple: we are Americans. First, we are obsessed with “getting something done” in every situation. But that’s the problem with our government: our fixation with “there ought to be a law” and “something ought to be done” has resulted in a Byzantine (with apologies to the Eastern Roman Empire) legal system and high incarceration rate. (And, of course, there’s the perennial problem with Americans negotiating). The second is that we aren’t used to sudden lurches in our legal environment, as happens elsewhere in the world. But face it: until we return to real Constitutional government, stuff like this is going to happen. And fixing the “fiscal cliff” won’t advance that one bit.
The truth is that Barack Obama should have skipped town sooner. Everyone bawls about this thing inducing a recession, but for Barack Obama (and Congress really) the sooner the better, with yet another election cycle (sigh) looming on the horizon. By then everyone can claim to have rescued us from yet another economic downturn without having to do anything!
As far as the Sandy victims are concerned, the US$4 million isn’t within the significant figures of the Federal budget(?). Such would be swallowed up in administration before the victims saw its benefit. We need to stop silly petitions and start figuring out a practical means for our own survival, with or without our Federal government.
Positive Infinity 