By DANIEL GILBERT is a conservative Republican presidential candidate and the ultimate underdog. He www.wethepeoplefor-president.com
A HUSBAND AND WIFE WERE GETTING up in years and were weary. Every day they rose at 5 a.m. to open the cafe and worked the day through to 10 p.m., trying to scratch out a living from their business. They said, “We make just enough to pay the bills and we are not getting ahead.”
They hope that the weather will bring snow to draw the tourists for the winter.The worried business owner down the road who runs a small restaurant says, “I am just hoping the tourists will show up for the winter sports, in spite of the high gas prices. If we don’t make money during the winter, we don’t make it.”
I was in the beautiful north country for three days of meeting and talking to the hard working men and women of New Hampshire. Further south, I stopped by an American Legion Post. I wanted to shake hands with some fellow veterans and thank them for their service. They were playing cards and sitting at the bar. Their concern was that they had just received the news that the Wausau paper mill was closing on Dec. 31, tossing 300 American workers out of their jobs. The local businesses will be impacted by this loss of workers and the mill pumping dollars back into the local economy.
I heard what these citizens and workers are worried about, what they are upset about, and what they are frustrated about. Of course politicians can’t do anything about the weather, but they can certainly do something about gas prices that strangle the country, and they can do something about the trade practices that unfairly favor any nation except America. In addition, politicians can certainly do something about tax codes and federal regulations that encourage businesses to close their plants, instead of keeping them open and retooling.
The greatest threats to the citizens of America are not high gas prices, NAFTA or unfair trade agreements. The greatest threat to the United States is entrenched career politicians in Congress who do what is best for special interests, big businesses, lobbyists, and big donors, instead of what is best for the citizens of the United States of America. Their agenda is mandated by their desire to get reelected. First agenda item is doing favors for special interest in return for donations and secondly pushing their home grown pork barrel projects to gain favor with the local voters.
Instead of spending endless hours in nonstop mind numbing hearings over the past year, Congress should have stopped the hearings and gone about the people’s business by voting to open up ANWAR and all wilderness and offshore areas for environmentally safe oil exploration. This one Congressional action would immediately put tremendous downward pressure on the speculative oil market, resulting in lower gas prices.
But instead our president has to beg the Saudi’s last week to produce more oil so that American citizens will not have to pay such a high price for gas.It is embarrassing for me as a citizen,and I am sure it was for President Bush, to ask the Saudi’s to help America solve its energy/economic problem when right down the street from the White House in Congress the politicians should be solving the problem.
The entrenched career politicians should also break off from the hearings to repeal NAFTA. NAFTA has gutted many American industrial plants, throwing American workers out of work while allowing the idle industrial machinery to be moved to Mexico.
Our political leaders need to renegotiate existing trade agreements that will balance the cost savings to the American shopper with the job losses of the American worker. If Congress never considers the job losses resulting from unfair trade agreements, then, at some point in the future, there will be few American shoppers to buy the foreign made products.
Moreover, the entrenched career politicians need to fix the tax code to enable businesses to make wise decisions based on pure business facts instead of whether or not taxes will have to be paid or not paid on the business decisions.
The greatest threat to the United States is the entrenched career politicians who will not do what is best for the country, our children and grandchildren.The American people need and deserve national leaders who will follow the constitution,who are citizen statesmen and who will serve the people instead of themselves, special interests and the lobbyists.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 22, 2008. Read the original PDF.