The Campaign Trail

Is it just me or does the president of the United States still have over a year left in office to do work?   To me it seems like he hasn't really done that much work while in office and the work that he has done has ticked off one group or another and hasn't really made much of a difference.  Last time I checked, a president is in office for 4 years which means he should be working for 4 years, not 2 and change if he has managed to even work that long.   So what are we the taxpayers paying him for?  Is it to pass unrealistic health reform bills, pass out stimulus money that ran out and didn't make much of a difference, or finally to pass a budget deal with Congress that will probably hurt our country more than help it?  And then he goes on the campaign trail because his approval numbers are low and in order to stay in office for one more term he has to start incredibly early to start gathering support from the masses.   To me it would be like a person employed by a corporation who, knowing when their last day of work was going to be, decided to spend their entire time and effort searching for a new job instead of working at their current one.  If it was two weeks, I would say it is understandable, but over a year away from losing his job and running what used to be one of the most powerful countries in the world, Obama decides to put his work on hold to campaign?  Give me a freaking break.  What we should do in situations like this is take the amount of money he makes during the year ($400,000) divided by 260 (the amount of work days in a year) and deduct his daily income ($1538 ) for every day he doesn't work i.e. campaigning, traveling, etc from his yearly pay.  In my mind, if you are going to be president of the United States, you should work your butt off to ensure that the country stays on the right track and to ensure that everything is running smoothly.  

With all the perks that the president gets during his term in office and following his term, you would think that they would devote a little more time to getting work done.  What happens if Obama wastes all this time on the campaign trail just to get booted out of office in 2012?  That would mean we lost all those days that he was campaigning and wasn't getting things done in the White House.  It is absurd at how little a president actually works these days.  When the president is working, most of his time is spent arguing with congress about the minute details of bills going through or budgets attempting to get passed.  No one in the capitol, the president or our representatives, has a notion of what reality is.  Those positions were originally set up to be spots for normal citizens to be able to hold in order to adequately represent their constituents.  All we see at this point is the wealthy who are able to afford to pay for their campaign making it into any public office in D.C.  There needs to be changes made to the system to make it more accessible to the general public and to curtail needless expenditures.  As it is, either as a president or elected representative, they all get lifelong pensions paid for out of our pockets.  The president's pension alone is based off of the cabinet secretaries income which in 2008 was $191,300.  Tell me that's fair.  If you are in office, especially for four years as president, and receiving these benefits (the pension is only one of them) when you leave, then you should be working hard as we the citizens of the United States are the ones who are paying.

Our government needs an overhaul.  Not just a little tweaking here and there because that has been proven to make things worse rather than better, but an actual cleaning of the house.  Any representative in office today should be fired, cleaned out for their useless wrangling and replaced with someone who will actually listen to his/her constituents and be willing to compromise to get things done.  If the new round of representatives doesn't listen, then fire them to and repeate the process until we have suitable representatives that we are happy with.  Policies need to be changed.  For one, lets start with eliminating the pension for all representatives along with their guaranteed health care package.  Second, lets set a limit on how long they can serve in office because as of right now, we could probably eliminate half of the seated representatives who have been their too long and just need to go.  In terms of the presidency, maybe we should set the limit on serving to one 4 year term.  If half of a presidents first term is spent campaigning for his next, then what is the use?  If he were a good president, Obama could be working on a lot of major issues right now, but instead he is on his "campaign trail" seeking to work for another 4 years as president and inevitably send our country even farther down the tubes.  What we need to do as Americans is get ticked off and stand up for our rights.  We put these vermin into office and we can take them out if we wish.  They serve us, not the other way around and the sooner we realize that, the sooner we can take back the government and form it in the way it was supposed to be as visualized by our founding fathers.  Don't just read this blog and agree (or disagree), but do something about it.  Our government has grown too large to be sustainable and is dragging our country out of its sphere of influence.  We need change, and we need it now, (and it will not come with Obama).