To all of you who are toiling away in the office, or factory, or storefront, and grow occasionally weary of the amount of time and effort you must expend to get the job done, this column is for you.
America was built on the backs of people who weren’t afraid to work. When there were roads to build, we stepped up. When there were diseases to cure, technology to create, children to educate, we were there.
The work isn’t always easy, and the ruthlessness of free enterprise isn’t always kind. Still, we stepped up.
Is there occasionally collateral damage in the relationships that are the most important to us? Yes. We’ve all missed a recital or soccer game occasionally. Our greater responsibilities to those we love sometimes demands it.
So I respect and salute you, the ambitious yet caring workers trying to make your way in the world with your intelligence, effort and commitment.
But I simultaneously have very little respect for those who earn large salaries while doing little with their time except banging pots and pans together with arrogance and cynicism under the nation’s largest circus dome: the United States Capitol.
I speak, of course, of the legislative branch of the United States government.
We like to praise the wisdom of the Founders in setting up a government that is the envy of the world: The legislative branch, which writes our laws. The executive branch, above the fray of lawmaking, with the power of the veto and federal appointments. And the judicial branch, with the power to hold us all accountable to our ideals, and the laws created to ensure them.
But the legislative branch — Congress — is where it all starts. Changing times, changing situations, changing technologies — all require new laws for new times, to maintain fairness, regulate evolving industries and create a framework that rewards effort, fairness and fealty to the principles embedded in our constitution.
But for decades, Congress has been reduced to endless battles that have produced little more than ongoing legislative stalemate.
Space will not allow several examples. But our problems at the border seem like a good place to start.
Here is an excerpt from a speech that was widely publicized in 2014. Read it, and then guess who said it.
“Today, our immigration system is broken, and everybody knows it. Families who enter our country the right way and play by the rules watch others flout the rules. Business owners who offer their workers good wages and benefits see the competition exploit undocumented immigrants by paying them far less. All of us take offense to anyone who reaps the rewards of living in America without taking on the responsibilities of living in America.”
In the eight years since that speech, which included a call to Congress to update our immigration policies, no meaningful legislative action has been taken. Instead, presidents have had to deal with the border crisis with a series of executive orders, which are mere band aids to cover open wounds. Executive orders are not cures. They fix nothing.
Still, if Congress refuses to act, what’s a president (or the nation the president represents) supposed to do? Doing something is better than doing nothing, though sometimes not by much.
Our government only works when the people we elect actually do their jobs, just like you do. Our Congress, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, has seen fit to do nothing about immigration, leaving presidents with no option except those hold-your-nose executive orders.
We deserve more than legislators who spend their time pounding the drums of trumped-up culture wars and then sitting back to wait for the checks from the Koch brothers and George Soros to pour in.
By the way, that quote about the border problem? That was President Barack Obama, speaking in a televised address to the nation in November 2014.
When it comes to Congress, the more things change, the more they sadly remain the same.
We deserve more, but we’re not demanding it. We’re not even asking politely. These days drum pounding appears good enough for us. But just for fun, try beating a drum all day yourself and see what your boss thinks about that. Just sayin’.
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