BIG OIL OR YOU? WHICH DID CONGRESS CHOOSE?

On June 15, 2010, while millions of gallons of oil were fouling the ocean and beaches in the Gulf of Mexico, sixty one senators voted to continue to provide $37,000,000,000 in tax breaks and credits to oil producers like BP and Exxon. These tax breaks flow directly to big oil companies inflating their profits at the expense of taxpayers and the federal deficit. The obvious oil company shills like Senators Murkowski(AK) and Coburn(OK) voted in favor of coddling the oil companies. But lame duck Senator Voinovich from Ohio, and Senators McConnell and Bunning from Kentucky also planted their kisses on big oil’s ring.

The Kentucky senators are ironic. Mitch I’ve-never-had-a-private-job McConnell is the senate minority leader. He wants to talk about how government spending is out of control while conveniently ignoring how long he’s been in government as a senator. He says he wants to cut taxes and spending. He doesn’t say he wants to make oil companies pay their fair share - neither do his votes.

Don’t get me wrong. I love profit, business and entrepreneurship. I love a juicy return on my investments too. But come on. Oil companies do not need help from taxpayers to make big profits.

Next consider Senator Bunning. He’s a charmer. This is the guy that single handedly held up the extension of desperately needed unemployment compensation benefits to the tune of thirty six billion dollars. Those benefits were to help employees who cannot find work for more than a year after they lost their jobs. His position was that “there are jobs, it’s just that all these unemployed slackers don’t want to work”. He would rather see Americans in his state and around the country go hungry or lose their homes, than make oil companies pay taxes on their profits.

Now some will say that extending benefits to unemployed people causes them to get lazy and complacent. I can see the logic in that argument. After all, congressmen get paid to do nothing too and they keep coming back for more. And don’t forget Citibank and GM. They were burning through taxpayer dollars, their management enjoying multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses while their companies floundered, all the while saying “we need to keep our talent and honor these contracts to pay bonuses.” All this while they terminated pension and union contracts that were in favor of working people, guaranteeing fair work rules, health coverage and hourly pay. But those thousands of workers don’t contribute millions of dollars to Republican causes, so contracts be damned. Take your lumps workers.

Of course there were 21 Democrats who wanted to protect the oil company profits by voting to kill the loophole closing amendment. Short of a revolution it appears that the only way to effect a real change in D.C. is to vote with a purpose. The purpose would be to replace every one of the senators and congressmen up for election in November. Almost any change would be better than allowing the fleecers in office to continue what they've begun. The purge would need to continue in 2012 with that group of Senate incumbents (1/3 of the Senate) removed too, and any of the new reps from 2010 that had consumed the rotten Kool Aid in their first terms.

The process needs to be repeated in 2014 with the last group of senators elected in 2008 removed. This complete reorganization is necessary in order to confirm to Congress that Americans have had enough. Doing any less of a thorough house (and senate) cleaning would allow the incumbents to indoctrinate the newcomers in the ways of narcissism and corruption. Even if we lost a couple of dedicated, thoughtful senators or representatives in the process, the removal of the greater group of sniping, squandering rabble would be worth it. It would shake national politics to its core too. Party lines would crumble and it would allow candidates who did not toe the party lines to rise up and make a difference. A complete renovation of congressional faces would make it clear to the political financiers and advisers that the two party jig was up.

As it stands, sound bites and “positions” have become interchangeably identified with either the majority or the minority. Each says the same about the other depending on who is in power. This makes the distinction between the two parties meaningless. How is it possible in a country as diverse as the United States that we are left with only two ostensibly competing view points? There are tens of brands of automobiles, more than fifty different kinds of breakfast cereal, ten brands of peanut butter, innumerable brands of hot sauces, but only two political viewpoints?

Remember in November that Congress is now filled with self interested career politicians who will make more in annual pension benefits, after retiring from even one financially rapacious term, than most of us will ever make in a year while working -- even if they are worthless while they are in office. Remember that fact too when you pay your quarterly estimated taxes, and your annual income taxes and every other tax dollar paid to the treasury for congressional miscreants to squander without any noticeable regard to the country’s debt or currency.

If the past and current conduct by this Congress does not motivate people to make big changes, and I don't mean just switching parties at election time, then the population will get the government it deserves, and will get it good and hard.