The Real Issues

And Party Politics

In every election we see a list of issues that the political parties debate during the course of the campaign. Who decides just what these issues are? The party leadership. Are they the real issues, are they the most pressing needs of our nation?

Who Determines The Issues?

The "Issues" are not always the most pressing needs of our country. They are a wish list that include the desires of influential special interest groups, and the powerful financial interests who support those parties with votes, and campaign contributions. They also include items the parties decide will be popular with the public.

If you watch the news and consider where our money is going you can get a pretty good idea who those special interests, and large campaign contributors are. They aren't us.

No one works on the real issues. During the debate over national health care legislation, the current administration pointed out all kinds of faults and abuses in our present government sponsored health care programs, which, if fixed, could save our country billions each year. Well folks those problems have existed for years, and congress chose to ignore them until their desire for national health care came up. The problems in the existing health care programs were a real issue. You didn't see it listed in last years list of issues did you? Both parties talked about national health care, no one talked about fixing what we have.

There are thousands of real issues every year, but congress chooses to ignore them in order that the needs of those powerful interests may be addressed instead. For instance, members of both parties knew about the problems in the banking system that lead to our near financial collapse and sparked the current recession. Another instance of real issues being ignored.

The Real Work Of Congress, Why Aren't They Doing It?

The real issues should be what congress works on. Every session there are more legislative items added, but no one works to correct the problems and abuses that already exist, and cry out for a solution. The only new items that should be considered should be items that truly are emergencies.

Our election process is broken. We the people have lost our voice to these powerful groups who direct the two political parties now in power. Our founding fathers intended that citizen legislators would serve in the government of this country. A farmer, or rancher, or doctor, or business man would be selected by his fellow citizens to represent them in the halls of congress. The representative was to be the citizens voice in our government. The job paid practically nothing, so the founding fathers figured 4 to 6 years was all the time we could reasonably expect the representative or senator to sacrifice in service of his country.

The Case For Term Limits For Congress

As time passed popular people were re-elected, and somewhere along the line the legislators discovered they could give themselves a raise, and neat benefits to make the job more profitable and desirable. Now the pay raises are automatic. In this, the worst recession since the great depression, all of these fellows have received a nice pay raise, courtesy of us citizens. They all also enjoy great health care, and have voted to exclude themselves from the national health care plan they would press on the rest of us.

Libertarian View, Restoring Our Country, How we Can Help As Citizens

So there is one really over riding issue. An issue towering above all the rest. That issue is how do we citizens regain control over our own government? We Libertarians think we have the answer. The difference is in how the party views the citizens. With the Democratic Party and the Rebublican party their views are that there is an us and them relationship between the party and the citizens. The Libertarian views of that relationship consist of only us.