I long have believed that politics is a noble profession, in that it is designed to serve the public, to do the public’s bidding. We pay for public policy decisions with our money, so those who enact that policy are doing noble work.
Except for this reality.
Politicians too often do not stand up under the standard set by their chosen profession.
I read in the Washington Post, for example, that U.S. senators say that a deal is within reach that would seek to curb gun violence in this country. However, what emerges from the Senate conference rooms will not contain all of the things on President Biden’s wish list. Therein lies the meaning of what I am suggesting.
The president — a lifelong politician, to be sure — has implored Congress to “do something” in the wake of the Uvalde school slaughter of those 19 precious children and two of their teachers. “Enough is enough,” he said the other evening.
Politicians heard him. Some of them ignored his plea because they are too beholden to the money that pours in from those who oppose any legislative remedy to the senseless slaughter. Others applaud the president.
What happens now? Some senators are huddling to find what they will call a solution. It won’t live up to the billing. Yet the politicians who cobble together this alleged remedy will praise themselves for their “bipartisanship.”
Pols do this every couple of years when the latest continuing budget resolution runs out. They take the nation to the brink of fiscal calamity, only to craft another continuing resolution. Oh, and then they slap themselves on the back and tell us all how great they are. They make me sick.
What will it take for politicians to live up to the standard set by the craft they pursue? Just stop playing games … especially now when lives are at stake!