I love the United States. There's so much here to see, to do, the creation of it, the "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality that this country has always stood for. Until now. Everybody wants a hand out. And I'm not talking about welfare. People think they're owed something, when in reality, you get what you deserve.
Now I'm going to talk about welfare. I believe it's noble to help a person in need stay afloat until they can take care of themselves. One of my favorite scenes in Cinderella Man is when James Braddock goes to the Welfare Office as a last resort so his children can come back home to live. After he catches a break and wins a few fights, he goes back to the Welfare Office and pays everything back. That's the ideal scenario for Welfare. But times are much different now. Most jobs require a drug test just to get hired. A drug dealer can receive Welfare while making money selling drugs if they wanted. Or someone could sit at home receiving it while getting high. The same goes for women that don't do anything but have children so they can receive more government assistance. It's horrible and it's wasting the hard working Americans money that should be used for more important things, like paying off the National Debt.
It's mind-boggling to me why there aren't provisions in place to end this. So drug tests cost money to perform. What doesn't cost money these days? If it's a deterrent to a quarter of the people on Welfare that abuse the system, that still helps! The worst case scenario would be everyone passes the drug test and we wasted money paying for that, but I've seen government buildings on military bases get renovated to be torn down. I've seen hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to clear an area, just for another to be unattended, causing the same amount of money to be used to clear that land when it's needed. Which brings me to my next point.
Useless government spending needs to stop. This isn't just a Conservative platform, it should be an American platform. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money, but we've been doing a lot of spending, and spending, and more spending, and we're not making anything (China is). The United States brought in $2.5 trillion in tax revenue last year, whereas we owe $16.7 trillion in debt. Without spending a penny of what the U.S. government receives in taxes, it would take over seven years to pay that off. We spend over 10% more a year than what we collect. Russia spends exactly the same amount the bring in from taxes: 34.1%. Germany? 3% more. Norway spends less than they bring in! Can you imagine us doing that? In my State & Local Government class in college, one of the assignments was to create a budget for all the tax money. It was the toughest assignment I had to do, seeing all the programs that I thought needed to be funded. It's not easy to decide where to spend and where to cut, I know, but the money has to be saved somewhere.
Although this article does clear up one of the major issues I previously had with Congress after watching the news, something has to be done regarding Congress. It's not run for the people anymore, it's run by the special interest groups. The majority of the public doesn't participate in the democratic process. When people don't take a stand and be heard, something still happens. The people that will stand up and be heard are. And unfortunately, those people are being paid by major corporations that are only interested in making as much profit as possible. You don't think the NRA enjoys it when Congress talks about putting bans on guns? What happens when the conversation even starts? People go out and buy more guns and ammunition, putting money in the corporations' pockets.
The list of problems facing the country is long. These are just a few that initially came to mind. But don't just expect things to get better because you want them to. Sometimes you have to do something about it. It starts with getting angry. If seeing the issues doesn't anger you, then you've already given in and have come to terms that this country is going down the wrong path and nothing can be done. If you're angry, then there's still hope. Something can be done still! Get involved with the issues. Talk about it. Be respectful, but you will ruffle feathers. People hate talking about politics. Political talk brings about disagreement, which brings out arguments on policy which brings out the people that say stop talking about it all together. The inaction of those people is exactly the problem that needs fixing if REAL change is going to take place. You don't have to agree on everything, but at the very least, you should agree that there is a problem that needs fixing. The process of coming up with a solution is the fun part.
Thanks for taking the time and reading,
Andy
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