Representation: What Does It Mean to You?

Do you truly feel represented by your elected representatives? Do you truly feel like your vote counts? For me the answer to both of these questions is no. I do not feel like our representatives are interested in the issues and challenges that I personally face. Our representatives, it seems, are a government by the people, of the people, and for the people, who matter. I feel a lot of times like they are specifically working against my best interests, and they are making a nation where the upper class are represented and the common man is ignored and invisible.

Do you feel like your interests are being represented in the upper levels of government? Are they sitting there in their big overstuffed club chairs thinking, "we really need to do more to help the lower classes and the poor through this period of explosive inflation, or some of those American families that we talk so much about in our campaign speeches may not make it through this period."? I find it highly unlikely. Many people do not vote anymore because they feel like voting for the lesser of two evils in the candidates is still casting a vote for evil. The things that concern you and I, like gas prices, inflation, the collapse of the financial center and the dissolution of financial institutions that have stood the test of time and which we thought would remain familiar names throughout our lives and those of our children, these are not the same concerns that politicians and their families must face. Why? Because we as their constituency are footing their bills for gasoline, transportation, travel, private schooling for their children, and of course their salaries. Maybe this is the reason that incumbents politicians are able to smile so big and happy when they are running for reelection.

How many politicians even know what it is like to work 8 or even 16 hours a day at a back-breaking menial job for an hourly wage that at the end of the day doesn't even cover the necessities? Most politicians are from middle class, upper middle class, and the environs of wealth, pomp, and privilege. Their children, (who are our future leaders) have never had to wear their clothes until they had holes in them, or worry once they do that there is no money to replace them. Will any of our representatives go in to work today knowing that two days worth of their hard earned labor is just the price of a pair of sneakers for their children? I doubt it. I find it unlikely as they sit in their plush hushed offices deciding on when you are or are not a person, or that you can go fight and die for the arguments that they start when you aren't even old enough to have a beer to lay the dust of battle in your throat. It doesn't even seem to phase them when members of that fighting force, our military, make so little on their paychecks that their wives are forced to accept welfare and food stamps from the same government that their husbands are willing to fight and die for, just to make ends meet and keep their proud and patriotic families fed. They apparently sleep like babies after a hard day of instituting policies that benefit the already wealthy and privileged classes and making poor people even poorer.

They seem to think that by enriching the already wealthy that they are putting money into the economy on the "trickle down theory". The theory that these people who greedily accumulate and appropriate money until it qualifies as "wealth" are going to put it back into the pockets of the little guy by spending their amassed wealth. Hello, that is not how they became, nor how they remain wealty! It is impossible to believe that they truly believe in this and that it is not just another party line for them. They can't possibly be so blind as to not see that when the wealthy by foreign cars, slave labor from illegal immigrants, and cut deals with foreign countries to sell our opponents in a war the secrets, the technology, and even the weapons that will enable the enemy to keep the war going and our troops occupied in flexing their military might in some foreign land, that the trickle doesn't trickle down to the American soil?

Most foreign nationals, whether legally or illegally in this country, do not trust our banks (I wonder why!)and keep their money either in cash or they send as much of it as they possibly can to wherever they have come from to help the families that they left behind, in order to come here and work in the "land of opportunity." So when the wealthy and the ultra wealthy spend their money most of it flies right of the country. That makes the "trickle down theory" just another of their ways of pissing down the leg of the American People. All the while they pander to the foreign governments and the causes of the lobbyist of the day. Lobbyist's from big business and deep pocket groups who pay our representatives to turn their backs on he needs and wants of their constituency in the interest of the industries and big businesses that can afford to pay them to care. We already pay them to care about their problems, it's called taxes. Which like it or not come out of your checks before you even see them, not to mention all of the other taxes and levies that we pay, such as sales tax and inheritance tax, which are monies that were already taxed at least once if not more times. Ask yourself how many of the wealthy and privileged class have sons or daughters shedding their blood in the Middle East? The question would more fairly be how many of them have sons and daughters joining the military and fighting the unwanted war that we are in and spending billions of tax dollars on, that are not running for the Vice Presidency of the country?

The median income of the American family according to Wikipedia and Wikianswers.com, and of course the U.S. Census bureau in 2005 was around $46,000 per year. That is a figure for the total household income not that of the individual. They further go on to state that the average income of someone 25 years old or older is $32,000 per year and that the median household per capita income is allocated to each member of a household was $24,000. Why then are we expected out of this money, which barely allows us to get by, to pay our "representatives" $163,000 (the senate default salary) per year for making policies that we don't like and that are not intended to benefit the common working man or woman? In the fiscal year for 2008 we had the privilege to pay $974,579 in gross salaries for the staff of the congressional representatives of the state of Hawaii, $1,228,124 for the great staff of the senator for the great state of Tennessee, $1,240,574 to Colorado, and $1,831,807 in salaries for the staff of the senator from the State of California. Such salaries are probably what are driving the median income figures so high because by my calculation at minimum wage, which is what millions of adults work for, $6.15 and hour totals $246 dollars for a 40 hour work week. If you multiply that times 51 weeks of the year (52-1 weeks a year for vacation) is $12,546 per year. For those wage earners who make an average of $10 per hour the figures are these: $400 per week times 51 weeks equals $20,400 which still falls short of the median figure. Not to mention that this is pretax income once you subtract even 10% as tax liability (for most of us our tax liability is closer to 15% or more but this figure is just for the sake of argument.) you can easily see why it is that so many people are losing their homes and are falling into financial destitution.

Congressional salary information was retrieved from http://www.legistorm.com/

The numbers from payscale.com are a little more promising and a bit more illuminating as to why the averages are so high while my simple calculations show that wage earners are not even close to the lower threshold of this income.

Sr Software Engineer/developer/programmer $89,021

Retail Store manager $41,582

Software Engineer/Developer/programmer $63,979

Project Manager, Construction $68,837

Administrative/Office Manager $37,726

Administrative assistant $32,366

Elementary School Teacher $40,090

While these median figures for income are nice, and many of us would be happy to be making even a little less, I would like to point out that these jobs all require either college educations or years of experience in order to qualify for the job at all. In February of 2005 USA today reported that 64% of high school graduates go to college, but that the number of Americans with bachelor's degrees is only 29%. The remaining 71% of Americans who graduated from high school are cut off from ever earning the salaries that I have listed above. Still is you subtract 20,400 ( the income of a $10 per hour wage earner) from 163,900 (the salary of a Senator) the servant of the wage earner or "public servant" is making around $143,500 more than his boss. The staff of any senator from his assistant to the boy who goes to get the coffee are all better paid than the people who pay them for their ministrations. Armed with this knowledge do you still feel that these people have any idea what it is like to be your "Average American Citizen", who for the most part are living hand to mouth and from paycheck to paycheck? How much money do you have put away for your kids' educations?

When I was a child, my father was in the military (in fact he served 23 years) and we moved around every few years. Everyone that we knew lived the same nomadic lifestyle, except for my extended family members who live in Indiana. When I was around 7 years old I met someone who was in their 20's who claimed that he was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina and that he fully expected to continue this until he dies and is buried in Charleston, South Carolina. I was floored! I had heard of people like this who were born in one place and just stayed there. In a way I feel like our representatives are much like I was then. They have heard of minimum wage earners and people who are virtually homeless, uninsured, and living below the poverty level though they have one or more jobs. Our politicians moving in their circles of pomp and privilege may have heard of such "Martians" but they almost certainly haven't met any, and they certainly don't have any friends who are members of this faceless, amorphous group of people known as the "average American citizen" but they want to represent our interests to the others of their kind who also have no idea who we are or what it is like to be us.

When those members of the wealthy and priveleged class have children they usually start investing money into a college fund for their child so that they can get an education when they graduate from a private school in some sheltered unrealistic educational island. They concern themselves endlessly with concerns about what school their child will graduate from with their degree, they do not live in the despair of knowing that no matter how hard you work you will not be able to put aside more than a few thousand dollars ever that can be earmarked for the education of even one of your children. For them and for their children higher education is a foregone conclusion and failre to attend college is more uncommon than going for their children.

As a parent do you feel that the former parent in that description, do you think that the latter parent's disappointment and despair for the future are burdens that our representatives carry on their shoulders to Washington DC. Is that frustration and lack of hope on their minds as they argue over same sex marriage, and raises in their already over inflated salaries, in addition to the money that they will get from this or that lobbyist for shafting the "little man" again. All the while they are building their bulwark against the possibility that they will ever be the common man who is struggling daily to get by, pay their bills, and still manage to have enough money left over from school lunches and clothes to feed themselves lunches while they are at work? How can one ever be qualified to represent the other, and to make policies that take away from the privileges and the money that they and their cronies enjoy to put it back into the pocket of the masses where it all came from?

Furthermore we have all heard of the Electoral College which is the institution that controls the election of the leaders of our country and is empowered to cast a vote that does not represent that of the individual voters whom they supposedly represent. They may not do so often, according to them, but it as been done in the past. The winner of the popular vote (your and mine) has lost to the loser in 1886, 1888, and 2000 according to the Wikipedia article regarding the electoral college found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Electoral_College. As long as this Electoral College is in place to insure that no matter what the voters say, the "right" politicians will never truly be representatives of the people. If our vote doesn't even count then why do they make such hoopla about who the parties are putting forward and which one is supposedly best to run our country? To make us believe that we are all in part responsible for appointing the wealthy and powerful leaders who continue to use us and oppress us, while they live on our money at eight times the amount that we make.

The institution of the Electoral College took place previous to the first national election and in this way they insure that no matter who actually gets to sit in the "Big Man Chair" in Washington, DC, nothing changes and that the people remain governed by their supposed "betters" rather than by the people. Two last questions here folks: "Do you feel represented by giving away the $170 billion of your money that our representatives have voted to spend bailing out the banks, because our financial complex is about to collapse due to the mismanagement of the billions of dollars of our funds that they already get from us in fees and penalties every month? Do you believe we will get a check for any dividends that this supposed investment in our country is supposedly going to generate for the American People?