Serious Shutdown? Serious Disappointment

Seriously? A Shut Down? They can't figure this out? Makes me sad, disappointed, and even angry. Does anyone in Congress actually care about real people or just their own ideologies?

I blame both parties. The Democrats should have taken care of this before the end of the year when they had control. Instead, they left the hard choices up to "later". Well, later is here. The Republicans are allowing themselves to be beholden to their right wing constituency. They believe they were sent with a "strong message" from the electorate. Yep - the message was "we aren't all that thrilled with what we have, so let's see what you got." The message was NOT "we think you, the Republicans are awesome and can do the job." Will they ever figure this out?

I say to both parties, "get over yourselves".No one wins if the government shuts down.  You have 7 hours to get this done, now go to work like we asked you to. If they cannot compromise, I think that the members of Congress, the President and his staff shouldn't get paid and all the other government workers still go to work and get paid. Then we can see how long it will take for the politicians to work out a deal.

Feeling Frustrated

Two years ago, we voted for Change. Change to the system, change of the current government system and a change to the ideals that the government in power was supposedly standing for.  What have we seen?

Health Care Reform that not many people supported. I do believe that President Obama believed that solving the Health Care Crisis would do much to alleviate the Economic woes in this country and I don't doubt that our soaring Health Care Costs and increasing number of un- and under-insured are a part of the reason our economy is in the mess it is in. Most Americans are very weary of this plan and are unsure how this will affect them. Will my taxes go up? Will my coverage go down?  I don't know and I haven't been able to find a good source of information about how this new program will affect my family.

An over $600 billion stimulus package that most Americans do not feel the benefits of. We see the construction signs on the side of the road, but few of us actually have anything to show for it; especially in our pocketbooks.  Instead, we continue to see a shrinking of the middle class and a widening gap between the "haves" and the "have nots."

It is very frustrating to me, as a life-long social liberal, fiscally central-liberal to watch this all play out. I am concerned by the lack of progress we have seen over the last 20 months.  Yet, I am also concerned about the so-called "Tea Party." This group claims to have no social agenda, yet many of their candidates when questioned support an extreme social agenda.  This does not seem to be a viable alternative to me.

My husband can close his social side and vote for what he considers more "fiscally responsible" candidates. I however; cannot. I cannot vote for someone who is pro-life, anti-gay marriage, and wants to remove evolution from school curriculum. I also cannot vote for someone who wants to continue to spend our hard-earned tax money on programs that just do not seem to be working.

So, here I sit 6 weeks from election day unsure where my loyalties lie. It is very frustrating.