The approval rating in Congress hovers around 12 percent. In the past, when a Congress was so clearly not working in the interests of the people, they were often voted out. Now, we gripe and complain because the legislators are only catering to the interests of the wealthy and the corporations. They are no longer working on our behalf, and yet,we plan to keep voting them back into office! This is the very definition of insanity; doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. If your child didn’t learn to stop touching the hot stove, even after being warned and burned, you’d fear your child wasn’t too bright. Well?

It is no excuse to say that we don’t know what to believe about the people on the ballot. There is a lot of information out there, along with the propaganda. We can be informed with a little effort. There is also a ton of money being spent by people who want things to remain just the way they are, because it works for them. But it is clearly NOT working for the country as a whole. The middle class, which makes a country strong and competitive, has gone missing. We now have very rich and everybody else, and very rich is calling the shots.

We, however, are not helpless. Look up the voting records of your Congress people, don’t just listen to what they say they will do. Look at what they have done in the past. They can promise all kinds of things in the future, but it is highly unlikely they will change. The votes that count are the ones that would have affected the middle class, us and our children. If you are a women, the Republicans in Congress decided, again, that your work is not as valuable as a man’s and you don’t deserve equal pay. If you are an hourly worker making minimum wage, many in Congress decided that you don’t deserve more money, no matter how hard your work. If you are unemployed, especially long term, the Congress decided you don’t deserve more help and they also voted down nearly all of the job creation bills. If you care about the condition of the environment in hopes your children will have clean air and water, please note that this current Congress didn’t do much to help improve it.

The wealthy have recovered nicely from the 2007 Great Recession. They are, in fact, flourishing. The rest of the country is not and it has nothing to do with how hard we are working. It also has almost nothing to do with immigration. All you have to do, is see where the money went, and you will know why our roads have potholes, our schools are underfunded, and our social services are degraded. An assault on the middle class is an assault on our democracy. The people with the money are buying ads trying to pit the needs of the elderly against the young. They trot out the tired old claims we can’t afford to build bridges or support social programs that benefit the majority of Americans, but big business has all time high profits and all time low taxes. We peons without money to buy a personal lobbyist, have only one recourse, we must vote out the people who are not working for us, and vote in some who will.

Most importantly, 18 or 80, we must VOTE.

Susan Chichetto
Bath