The Morning After

Try reading the mind of God!  Is it possible to understand why, after the expenditure of six billion dollars in advertising, hours upon hours of American prayer and enough negative commercials to drive a Saint to drink, we wound up with almost the same situation we had before the election?  I'd like to try to help figure it out.

Some of the world's religions teach that we are sent to this planet to learn particular lessons.  Some even present that we pick our families ahead of coming here so that we maximize our opportunities to improve.  Others teach that whatever the reason we came in the first place, we are put into the same negative situations over and over until we finally learn correct and healthy responses to them.  An example might be always getting mean and hateful supervisors at work until such time as we learn how to cope and thrive in spite of them. 

So, keeping these thoughts in mind, how can we view our election results?

President Barack Obama gets another opportunity to defuse an obstinate House of Representatives and to motivate a recalcitrant Senate and to show the hope and change he promised as he moves us forward.  He gets to overcome his deer-in-the-headlights response to this dysfunctional Congress and assume the leadership role that We the People have twice given him the opportunity to command.

The Senate of these United States has one more chance to produce a sound budget that cuts wasteful spending while preserving worthwhile causes as they pay down the national debt.

The House of Representatives gets to forget ridiculous austerity and put on their thinking caps in an effort to devise sensible methods of paying down the afforementioned debt, including increasing taxes -- that five-letter, four-letter word.

All of the above absolutely must cooperate and compromise.  You are not playing games.  This is the real world and we are real people who need you to do what you were elected to do -- construct, tweek and pass laws to make our country better and stronger.

Mr. Mitch McConnell's lesson is that we want to give him one more chance to effect meaningful change for us.  We did not send him to congress to make sure Barack Obama was a one-term President or to waste an entire term in doing so.  We sent him to cooperate and use his mind for worthwhile things.  Besides he failed at his number one priority as well as on our behalf.

Mr. John Boehner needs this second chance to learn that the American right to go from a bar owner's son to one of the most powerful jobs in the land comes with a huge responsibility -- not just self aggrandizement.  He must play nice with others and get some good work done -- real work, not just rhetoric.

Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and others of their ilk must realize the folly of politicians -- themselves, especially -- making political promises that cannot or should not be kept.  You are going to have to tax!  Again, that four-letter word, but in it's three-letter form.

And our President, whom some of us see as too willing to cooperate and compromise, is going to have to have more starch.  He will need it to stand up to the bullies in the other branch.

Karl Rove, The Koch brothers and the Super Pac big spenders get to learn that they can find more influential and responsible ways to spend their dollars.  How about using it to pay down the debt?  You obviously didn't buy our votes, did you?  And, oh yes, lying doesn't really work either, does it?

Mr. George Will, perhaps you are correct to some degree.  It may be necessary to have a Republican majority in the House to slow things down long enough to think and work together.  But, I am right as well.  This much gridlock is dysfunctional.

You all have a new opportunity to get this right and save our country from debt and bancruptcy.  Don't screw it up this time.