Fix It or Get Out

[Jiro]

Why do we pay politicians for no results? - CNN.com

Why do we pay politicians for no results?

Editor's note: CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose 25 books include "Late Edition: A Love Story" and "Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen." He appears on "CNN Newsroom" Sundays during the 5 p.m. ET hour.

(CNN) -- If the furnace in your basement stopped working, and you hired a company to repair it, what would you do if several of the workers came upstairs, told you they couldn't figure out how to get the furnace started, and then began pointing fingers at each other and saying:

"It's his fault."

"No, it's his fault."

"If he'd listen to me, we could get this job done."

"He tries to stop me every time I'm on the verge of fixing your furnace."

You'd probably stand there slack-jawed, hardly believing what you were witnessing. Then you'd say:

"I don't want to hear you guys blaming each other. I'm paying you to do a job. Just go back down there and do it, or if you can't, get out of my house."

Or if you had a leak in your plumbing, and the plumbers emerged from under your sink to tell you:

"I'm sorry -- I can't work with this man. He undoes everything I'm trying to do to get your pipes back in shape."

"So typical of him to put the blame on me. He's got it exactly backward. I know how to stop the leak -- he has no idea. And he never has."

You'd tell them that this is not what you hired them to do. Why are they wasting your time and money telling you that it's the other guy's fault that the water is still dripping onto your floor? You'd ask them to keep their personal animosities to themselves and figure out a way to complete the job they'd agreed to do, or else you're not going to give them a cent.

You'd be well within your rights. When work needs to be done, you hire people who promise that they know how to do it, and you expect to get what you paid for. You are the employer; you are the boss.

But in one area, this doesn't seem to be the case.

In politics and government, almost all Americans agree on the tasks that urgently need to be completed.

A few of them:

• Creating jobs so that finding meaningful employment can stop feeling like pursuing an all-but-unattainable luxury.

• A fair solution to health care, that compassionate people along every station of the right/left continuum can live with and be proud of.

• Fixing the fallout from the big-bank machinations and the mortgage crisis that have cost so many people their homes.

Addressing these problems is a task beyond any of us as individuals. So, in the same way we hire workers to repair the furnace or plug the leak under the sink, we hire workers to fix the big national problems.

They have lofty titles and work in buildings made of white marble. We hire our presidents, our members of Congress, and, indirectly, our justices of the United States Supreme Court.

And maybe it is time to remind ourselves -- and to remind them -- that they are, in fact, hired hands.

They are being paid to do a job. They are not being paid to tell their employers -- the citizens -- why they can't get the job done, or why they can't get along with the other hired hands who are supposed to be working beside them.

Only in politics and government, when the hired hands come up short, are they allowed to get away with flicking spitballs at each other as the country waits for results -- spitballs in the form of purportedly clever attack lines packaged and issued by advisers, meant to wound the other side, yet doing nothing to further the completion of the jobs at hand.

Whether, individually, we are conservatives or liberals or somewhere in the middle, we have a right to expect the people who have been hired to solve the country's problems to do just that, and to spare us the name-calling and blame-shifting. We wouldn't accept that from electricians or auto mechanics; there is no reason to accept it from men and women with federal titles.

There is a self-congratulatory phrase that political pros like to throw around: "Politics ain't beanbag." But these days, that's what it increasingly can feel like: a childish game played by people so enamored of the game itself that the playing of it pushes aside the real-world consequences.

Those real-world consequences matter -- they matter desperately. And the people who should be the demanding employers -- the citizens -- are tossed about in the heavy waves of the political storm, as if they are mere bystanders who have no standing in all of this.

There is another phrase, used as the title of a song by the young Bob Dylan in the years before his name became known all over the world. In a different context from the issues we face now, Dylan called his song "Only a Pawn in Their Game."

It would be hard to blame Americans today if they sometimes identify with that phrase.

But they shouldn't have to settle for feeling like pawns.

And this is not a game.

 

[Bebonang]

This is to show examples of why some of the members are doing this just only to blame anyone like the President Obama. This has amaze me why members never stop and still pointing and blaming a person for not doing the job that the members are not satisfied.

Thank you, Jiro.

 

[DeafBadger]

More often these days, my father says that he misses the days when there was more bipartisanship in government. He is talking about the 50s, 60s, 70s. Not that these decades weren't without controversies and crises, but that politicians were more typically focused on working together to create solutions, instead of mutually and deliberately causing divisions as if it were a football game.

The old-hands in both parties that used to be more cooperative have passed on and now both parties are in the hands of... darned if I know. I'm in my 30s and the state of politics today seems bizarre to me.

 

[TXgolfer]

It's called backlash....and it is to be expected in politics. We have run a course of entilement spending and are now feeling the effects. Some are heeding the warning and some are full steam ahead. Thus, conflict. Conflict can lead to a correction and good

 

[airportcop]

Entitlement and social programs, reckless spending and under the table palm greasing have corrupted our government and it is wildly out of control! Pork barrel projects, propaganda, just plain stealing and thievery have gotten us into this mess that we are all partly responsible for! The system has to be changed and that means getting rid of a lot of political hacks and figureheads that do nothing more than drawing a paycheck and pointing fingers. It happens on both sides and must stop now! Our economy is going to crash if the feds keep printing money and handing it out like candy to hungry children. Deep budget cuts are needed and that means jobs as well in the government sector that will have to go. It is going to get harder before it gets better. Better buckle down and hold on tight.

Obama in my opinion is not the answer and never has been. It would have been great to have had a successful black man as president but at this point it is just more bitter history that needs to be forgotten and changed. Here's to real hope and change in America's future! Revive patriotism and neighborly love!

 

[diehardbiker]

Economy crash = Fiscal Cliff

I think it is going to happen anytime soon and it won't be pretty.

I blame on government for having too much control, too much controls equals more mistake and backfires.

I don't think entitlements has to do with this, maybe a bit but not much. Its how government runs that is the problem.

 

[Jiro]

 

[diehardbiker]

Did you guys realize that if one has issue with alcoholic drinking is entitled to SSI benefits if they can't find job.
Something is terrible wrong with this picture.
I have always knew that the government is now fully corrupted and is in major mess. I believe the solution to this problem is total government revamp. Fire all Congress and get new one, limit congressional terms to no more than 3 terms.

 

[Foxrac]

Did you guys realize that if one has issue with alcoholic drinking is entitled to SSI benefits if they can't find job.
Something is terrible wrong with this picture.
I have always knew that the government is now fully corrupted and is in major mess. I believe the solution to this problem is total government revamp. Fire all Congress and get new one, limit congressional terms to no more than 3 terms.

Oh really, I know SSA always deny the benefits to people who have drug abuses (include alcoholic beverage) but only problem is lawyer and the lawyer take SSA to court so the judge order SSA to approve the benefits to people with drug abuses.

I have say to blame on all lawyers and corrupted court system instead of SSA.

There are some people lost SSI benefit after had drug abuses in DC and Gally, also FAFSA will REFUSE to help to pay college if you have history of drug abuses.

The drug abuses must be treated in involuntary rehabilitation center by getting judge order.

 

[Frisky Feline]

 

[Frisky Feline]

Did you guys realize that if one has issue with alcoholic drinking is entitled to SSI benefits if they can't find job.
Something is terrible wrong with this picture.
I have always knew that the government is now fully corrupted and is in major mess. I believe the solution to this problem is total government revamp. Fire all Congress and get new one, limit congressional terms to no more than 3 terms.

Oh really, I know SSA always deny the benefits to people who have drug abuses (include alcoholic beverage) but only problem is lawyer and the lawyer take SSA to court so the judge order SSA to approve the benefits to people with drug abuses.

I have say to blame on all lawyers and corrupted court system instead of SSA.

There are some people lost SSI benefit after had drug abuses in DC and Gally, also FAFSA will REFUSE to help to pay college if you have history of drug abuses.

The drug abuses must be treated in involuntary rehabilitation center by getting judge order.

No they don't pay drugs or AA people unless they HAVE serious kidney failure or any other organs problem by AA or drugs then they do pay, unfortunately.

 

[Sares]

Government sees our people as the "deaf community", yet they are the ones not hearing.