No Kumbaya with government shutdown

By Darlene Vann
Community Column: Musings
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EDGEWATER, Fla. -- Are you as sick of your Congressional representatives as I am? We need to vote the whole bunch out and try to find new ones who know how to compromise and not stomp their little feet in protest when things don’t go their way.

Here we are again on a precipice where we can fall off and shut down the government -- yet again -- or we can find ways to work together to accomplish the necessary goals of our country as a whole -- not just the goals of Republicans, Democrats or Tea Party supporters. Anyone who thinks the original Congress folks and those writing our Constitution were just one big happy family needs to think again and study up on their history. Even way back then we had differing parties.

They did not all sit in a circle singing Kumbaya!

They fought for their opinions to be included, but they also knew there had to be compromise or this new country we fought to bring to life would never exist. They understood the ultimate goals and managed to make it all work.

Funny, all these years later we can’t seem to manage such a thing. OK, so the Republican’s don’t like President Obama or Obamacare, but standing their ground and refusing to even talk about compromise is certainly not helping anyone. I don’t know if Obamacare will turn out to be a good or bad thing, but I do think someone had to start somewhere to fix the broken healthcare system.

Obama said he would and he did. So now that it is here and courts have said it is legal let’s just pull together and see what happens next. The Constitution didn’t take everything in the future into account since many changes were coming that’s why we have amendments.

Can’t we see what works and make amendments later if necessary?

I find so far that I have benefited from the new plan with smaller co-pays for prescriptions and doctor visits. Anything that saves me money helps with my fixed income. I don’t like being told I have to have insurance or pay a fine, but I think that will be just to get people motivated and will eventually fall away. Congress needs to stop cutting everyone else’s funding while they continue to raise their salaries.

There are too many staff members who need to find other jobs and the big boys and girls need to start cutting their expenses just like most all Americans have been doing now for quite a few years. We need essential services like police and fire, but there's the expense that comes with it. Medical services and even the infrastructure in this country stink. So fix these and get rid of the pork.

The biggest pork is the lack of cooperation in finding solutions each side can agree on for all the pressing issues. Fix that and I think we can manage the rest. 

Column posted: 2013-09-30 16:36:23