Health care and representation government

The topic of this blog is warfare. However, I do go off the path once a year or so. This is one of those exceptions.

I remember Presidents who suggested what I believed to be good changes to help make Social Security solvent. The American public was dead set against it. We moved on. This example is not a particularly good one because just about everyone agrees that Social Security DOES need change, whereas the health care system in this country has been and is leading the world. (One of the few things where we still do so)

What concerns me the most is that today, our leadership is not accepting NO. They believe that the long-term benefits will be better for our country, we just have to get through the rough patch. A few years from now, everyone will see how much better off we are. I had believed that this was the case for Social Security, but I had accepted the fact that the U.S. public did not want it.

So now, if a President believes what he wants to do is really in our long term best interest, and even if the American public says NO, he/she should be able to go ahead and do it anyway? This is not representative government. He/she can change Social Security without congressional (Public) approval? He/she can take over the energy industry without our approval? How about waging war without the Congress spending the money and/or approval? If this is the case, what do we need Congress for?

A good friend of mine suggested that we would save a ton of money by cutting the number of Senators and Representatives in Congress by ½. We don’t need them as much and it will not change the representation.

What if the public and Congress disagree with the President on this issue? It should not matter because it is in our long-term best interest. The foundation of our Republic is based upon the Constitution and representative government. I guess that he really meant it when President Obama said that he wanted to ‘fundamentally change’ America. Pushing health care through against the public wishes will do just that.