A couple of weeks ago, in my weekly email to those of you who are on my subscriber’s list, I predicted that Congressmen were going to have a tough time with the public during summer recess in their home districts.  (By the way, there is no cost, user names, or passwords to join my subscriber list; you need only email me at bbwinona@charter.net to get my weekly email.)  My predictions have proven true, although it didn’t take a genius to figure out that the public would be awfully mad.

In the last 12 months the Federal Government has (1) bailed out Bear Stearns ($29 billion) and numerous other Wall Street firms at tremendous taxpayer expense, (2) spent 85.3 billion to bailout GM and Chrysler at taxpayer expense, (3) verbally berated the Chairman of Ford Motor Company, (whose firm hasn’t taken one red cent of bailout money) for flying a company jet to Washington, while ordering 3 new gulfstream jets for members of Congress, (4) bailed out AIG ($69 billion) and Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac ($400 billion) with taxpayer money, and (5) passed through the house a bad cap & trade bill that will significantly increase the energy bills of all Americans over the next 20 years.  In total, the Federal Government and Federal Reserve System have racked up bailout commitments of over $12 TRILLION just during the past 12 months.   That’s roughly equal to the entire output (GDP) of the US economy for an entire year.

In addition to all of this, the President has decided that he can reform our “broken” healthcare system!  While not perfect, the US health care system is far from “broken”.  There’s not a person in this country who can say with a straight face that the government has ever run anything efficiently, in the US or in any other country.    Is there anyone on earth who couldn’t have predicted voter outrage when congress returned home this summer?

Nancy Pelosi has characterized outspoken voters as “mobs” and “Nazis”.  Conservative Republican groups have allegedly taken these thousands of angry people and have led them by the nose to shout down their congressmen in open meetings.   This, of course, has cut off constructive dialog, according to the Democrats.  Attendance at town meetings is three times greater than it has been in 30 years.  This is no conspiracy; this is no accident.  Whether the Dems want to admit it or not, this is an honest to God taxpayer revolt.  The United States of America isn’t the south side of Chicago, where money is something that comes from a “grant” and is handed out like candy in the street.  In the rest of this great nation, money must be earned through hard work and commerce; the government produces nothing.

I’ve got news for every elected official in Washington.  There are millions and millions of independent voters in this country who aren’t going to go quietly as the government steals their money, usurps their freedoms, messes with their health care, and puts the burden on their children and grandchildren.  They are showing up at town meetings and they are beyond frustration; they are infuriated.  The Democrats can get as many ACORN members and union members as they wish to attend future town meetings, but rank and file Americans have been pushed to the limit.  There’s no shutting them up at this point and millions of them can’t wait until Tuesday, November 2, 2010 when 435 members of the US House of Representatives are going to face a serious possibility of a career change.  And, by the way, the pathetic and unprincipled Republicans who are elected in their place had better wake up and smell the coffee, or two years later they’ll also get the famous Salyards “Term Limit.”