DEAR EDITOR:

So, you vote for your U.S. congressional representative, and you think they will vote in your best interests? Think again. Newly elected representatives first attend “Freshman Orientation for New Members of Congress.”

On the average, each representative stands in for 760,000 Americans in their district. A LOT of people with different opinions on how their rep should be voting. And only a handful of that number actually elected them. After Freshman Orientation, they no longer vote your will; they vote as they’re told to vote by their “party leadership,” both Democrat and Republican. They don’t have to read the bill they’re voting on, just follow orders, yea or nay. Who can read and fully understand a 1,000-page bill? That’s like reading War and Peace.

Just do as you’re told and when you eventually retire, you’ll be considerably wealthier than when you got in. And you’re 90+% guaranteed to be reelected. But vote against party leadership and they will oust you. It’s a real gravy train. Term limits? They’ll never vote to derail this train. Also, you are required to spend much of your day on the phone, soliciting donations for the party and your reelection. You become a telemarketer, and refusal is not an option.

How did our government get to the state it’s in today? What happened to the “checks and balances” that were laid out so carefully by our Founding Fathers; the guardrails that kept spending within reason and maintained a balanced budget? Where did we go wrong? Because, when you look at it, it all does fall in our laps as voters. WE have allowed it to happen.

When Davy Crockett was in Congress (1833-35), the members wanted to give a donation of our tax money to a Navy officer’s widow. Crockett stood up and said, “It’s not yours to give” away the people’s money. The vote failed. But in the 1960s lobbying was starting to flourish, and the “earmark” was invented, giving money to a university to build a nutrition research building. (Read, “So Damn Much Money-The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government,” by Robert Kaiser.) That opened the floodgates, and Congress has been blowing our money ever since. Bringing home the bacon.

Sad that we can’t go back in time and follow the original intent of our Constitution. But that would be “regressive,” not progressive, like the Democratic Socialist party wants.

DONALD ALLEN

Boardman