There has been a subtle change that has taken place in Congress that, while not destroying the basic historic nature of the USA, has damaged it severely.

I get that it would be naive to say that who sits in the White House has no bearing on what actions the United States of America does or does not pursue. This person, readily recognized as the leader of the free world, in theory musters the forces of sanity and good judgment to lead the country.

But seldom do the stars align where (regardless of what one might think of their ideologies) we have a Bill Clinton or a Ronald Reagan who can convince enough of the 535 independent cusses who sit in both houses of Congress to go in the direction he or she wants. If you look back through the history of this great country of ours, usually change has been a slow and incremental process towards bettering the nation. In my opinion, of late these changes have been for the worse. Both W. Bush and Obama must bear a part of the responsibility for the last 15 years of creating the mess our nation is currently in. Yet using presidents as scapegoats for all of America’s problems misses the forest for the trees.

So here is what I think we as a nation need to admit we have experienced of late: They don’t work for us anymore!

Congress, the 535 elected officials chosen to do the bidding of their constituents, have slowly turned their backs on the people and instead gone where the money leads them. Frankly, they work for the lobbyists and special interest groups! I have met with many of their staffs on several different occasions and each time seen firsthand that interest and money now go hand-in-hand. It’s not the President, it’s them.

Do they have basic positions? Sure. If you have a social underpinning issue that you are supporting, you don’t go see someone on the right side of the aisle. And if you have a banking or insurance related issue that you need help with, you don’t go see anyone of the left side of the aisle. But while they’ll talk all day about these basic positions, actual votes and legislation are fewer and fewer.

So there’s the problem: these 535 folks who sit up there become grounded and inured in their own surroundings, views, and the allure of money or favors. You can assure yourself that if they sit on one side in particular, they really don’t hear, or at least pay attention to, views from the opposing side. Obstructionism, and the lack of action, has become the new action. This is all natural. Any of us (sadly enough even me) would do the same thing. If all you are paid to hear all day and do is blah, blah, blah then things that are said to you that don’t start with blah mean nothing to you.

Working together with the President, the nation, and the people means nothing to a vast majority of Congress.

That is why we have to get more focus on the two houses of Congress in our election process! Until we have term limits in Congress (remember, we have term limits in the White House, but for some reason we don’t have them in Congress) we the people who put them in must kick them out. We the VOTER have to start paying more attention to those elections: both the Senatorial and Congressional.  Those guys and gals, are, for the most part, not doing our work. They are working for the people who gave them the money to win their seats. Payment for the office outweighs the votes for the seat.

So where do we start? We have to realize that all of the noise on television is just that; noise. We have to read and learn what these folks are doing up there. Don’t listen to what they TOLD you they did, find out by reading up on them and seeing what they really did. And in most cases, what they didn’t do. We have to decide that our votes aren’t for sale! We have to make decisions based on the candidates’ historical track record.

In sum, that’s what we need to talk about here. We need to talk about Congress. Many of them aren’t bad people, they just aren’t doing our work. We need to send them home.