Let me first point out that this is the second one of these things that I’ve written. I looked at the post I put up a couple of weeks ago and I think this one is very similar but I still want to go with this one:
My routine is the same every morning (that may seem obvious, that’s why it’s called a routine but I love the phrase solely due to this irony) and do the same thing: I toss some beans in the grind and brew, microwave my turkey sausage, toast my whole-wheat, reduced-fat english muffin and channel surf for awhile. Due to the confluence of a sputtering economy and presidential election the top topic of debate is “What’s wrong with America?” Are our best days behind us?” “Does capitalism still work?”
Allow me the priviledge, as the author, to tell you the answer up front and then build my case. The answer is no, America is not broken. Listening to these shows makes me want to crawl through the TV and grab Steve Doocey or Joe Scarborough by the lapels and shake some damn sense into them. There’s nothing wrong with the country or the system. The problem is with the people who are running the show. Our President is no leader. The leadership on the hill is divided and neutered, mostly devoted to advancing their own fortunes.
Likewise the problem with the economy isn’t that businessmen like me are shaking in our boots about a tax change or increase in a fee. Sure, we don’t want to pay more in taxes or fees – who does? However, what’s killing the economy is that nobody is driving the bus. Our leadership in Washington have setup a economic feedback loop that will be excruciatingly difficult to break. Businessmen stop investing and spending money when clues start to emerge that things are looking bad and the leadership really don’t know what they’re doing. Healthcare change? Sure, what’s the proposal? oh, there really isn’t one….Bank regulation? You bet. they’re rotten bastards who are responsible for the mortgage crisis. How are we going to do that? Oh, Congress is supposed to bring a policy proposal to the White House? Really? These conversations start all around the country over shared cups of coffee early in the morning and grow from there: “What the hell is going on in DC?”
Our Country needs leadership. Real leadership. Someone who is unafraid to lead on the issues that need a firm hand. Not waffle or conduct focus groups or who talks a lot about “leadership”. Someone that just does it. Now, don’t confuse any of this with the “get the government out of your way” baloney. I’m all in favor of that but that’s not the message. The message is: decide what you’re going to do and get about it. Stop flailing around and move it. However, from Rick Perry’s contempt for intelligence to Barak Obama’s endless flailing there just isn’t anyone in the running yet that’s going to fix this thing.
The best summary of the situation I’ve heard came from a person who has been a house wife for the past 45 years. She’s very traditional in her thinking – she has very firm and traditional expectations of the roles of the sexes in society but she’s also run her own small business for the past 10 or so years. My mother surveyed the field of candidates on both sides of the fence and put it like this: “We need a man to run the country”. Indeed.