The article below is a reprint of an article by Charley Reese of the Orlando Sentinel. I wanted to share this with you because it is a timeless piece.  So timeless, in fact that it was originally written in 1984.  You can find the original article here. 

545 VS 300,000,000 PEOPLE

By Charley Reese of the Orlando Sentinel

(Latest update – January 2013)

“Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.” Have you ever wondered, if both Democrats and Republicans are against deficits, why do we have deficits? Have you wondered if all politicians are against inflation and high taxes, why do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does.
You and I don’t have the authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does.
You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does.
You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.

100 Senators, 435 Congressmen and 1 President and 9 Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million that are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. I exclude the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by Congress. In 1913 Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private central bank. I exclude all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton picking thing. I don’t care if they offered a politician $1 million. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises it’s the legislators who determine how he votes.

These 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget; he cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the Speaker of the House? He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass over his veto.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted by present facts, of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a lone single domestic problem that is not directly traceable to those 545 people.

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow, that what exists is what they want to exist. If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red. If the Army and Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it’s because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan. If they do not receive Social Security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way. There are no unsolvable government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish, to lobbyists whose gifts and advice they can reject, to regulators to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take the power. Above all do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy”, “inflation”, or “policies” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. They alone have the power. They alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their employees-we should vote all of them out of office and clean up the mess.”
Janice S. Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt CPA Group