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“I’m worried this season of Jersey Shore will be less embarrassing to America than our government.”

Unknown

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No, this column is not about our military which I have high esteem for, but rather it’s about our government at all levels that has become more and more of a joke. Maybe that’s why we see countries like Egypt rotating between a democracy and its history of military takeovers. Unfortunately for all of us taxpayers we are paying for something we are not getting and I have no doubt that things are going to get a lot worse before they get any better.

I fully believe that we now have the worst government in Washington, D.C., than ever witnessed since the Civil War. It is a government crippled by bipartisan politics caused by politicians who have been in office so long that most probably believe they wrote the Constitution but have no clue as to what the purpose of that sacred document is. Members of the U.S. Congress are going on a five-week break while our nation begs for solutions for the many problems the very members of Congress caused.

A perfect example is that once again at the end of September the stopgap measure to fund the federal government will end, which means it has to shut down without further funds. It has been happening for years, which simply means our country is being run without a federal budget, which is dictated by law. If we break the law, we go to jail. Why don’t politicians go? It definitely would be cheaper than the status quo.

As a veteran I am also nervous about what members of Congress have come up with to solve the problems within our veterans’ hospitals. I personally feel that most of the problems are more of a bureaucratic nature than solely of a medical nature, but when looking at what members of Congress could come with for solutions, I find that scarier than the problems themselves. Supposedly they have come to some kind of political compromise before they vacate the halls of the U.S. Capitol once again. The question is what kind of solution did they really make.

I could go on about what’s happening in our nation’s capital including our president’s falling approval rating. I look at all the catastrophes happening around our planet that could affect generations to come and what has our president been up to? Let’s see, thousands of illegal children stream into the United States so does our president visit where the problem is occurring? No, he goes to Texas to do fundraisers for the Democratic Party. A civilian airliner gets shot down over a war zone and does he stay at the White House? Nope, he flies to even more fundraisers. Another war breaks out in the Middle East and where is our president? Hope I don’t have to give three guesses for that answer.

What’s even wackier is that a White House spokesperson states that the president should continue doing whatever he had planned because Americans would panic if he stayed put at the White House. At this point all of us should panic over none of that but rather the fact of who our president is and I never stated that when Nixon or Carter were presidents.

I would like to say that things are better in Augusta or Windham but I really can’t. Politics makes for strange bedfellows and that’s true for both locations. So far I see very few candidates running for seats in Augusta that I can support and have no clue at all as to who’s going to run for office in Windham. If the recent joint meeting of the Windham Town Council and Planning Board is any example, I can only state that a giant flushing sound needs to be heard in November. It’s something that I have hoped for but the sound of silence is deafening when it comes to electing anyone who fulfills the promises that they make.

Lane Hiltunen of Windham believes all elected officials should be paid one dollar a year because then we will be finally getting our money’s worth.