This is my Real Estate blog, but today I’ll be writing about other things. There’s a connection to Real Estate, and I’ll draw the map for you. But something is weighing on my mind and I need to climb atop my virtual soapbox for a while. The issue irritating me now? Our Government. Now many of you conservatives out there are thinking – “Heck Yeah. Down with that bloated monstrosity.” I feel the same way about it often, but I’ve grown to dislike, distrust, and feel ashamed of the entire apparatus we call our government. The liberals are shaking their heads too right now thinking “Government doesn’t represent ME anymore.” You know? They’re both right. Our entire system has become mired in and crippled by senseless waste, rampant patronage, and self-preserving policy-making that the Founders feared over 200 years ago. Now, the greatest nation the world has ever seen, is standing on the precipice of defaulting on it’s obligations and forever tarnishing a reputation earned over a span of 200+ years. It’s shameful, and everybody is to blame. You. Me. Them. And certainly the elected officials who are supposed to represent our interests in Washington.
I can agree one hand that spending needs to be reduced and that is a value worth a fight. I can agree on the other hand that the immediate problem is the debt ceiling, and spending can be addressed when a train wreck is not looming dead ahead. What I can’t abide is that every player in this high-stakes game of chicken long ago stopped caring about my interests, or yours, or your friends etc. They each only care about their own political fortunes and the rhetoric is so overused that the “right thing” is lost and unfindable. It’s a mess, and the only ones who can clean it up are us. The labels “democrat” or “republican” don’t mean anything anymore. No matter their beliefs and convictions when they get to Washington, the dominant motivator soon becomes preservation of self. Preservation of status, power, income, pension, gym membership, travel junkets. There is no exception. Your guy or gal is not Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” They conform or are cast out by the fraternity of fecklessness. It is a universal virus and it has a 100% mortality rate.
What should we do? In my opinion, the main problem is that our elected representatives do not live in the same America we do. Some of us are rich. Some of us are poor. Most of us are middle class. All of us are shackled with the idiocy of our government. The people who make the shackles don’t have to wear them. What the…? How did we ever allow our congressmen and senators to create different realities for themselves than they create for us? How did we all get saddled with dysfunctional behemoths such as Social Security and Medicare? Yet the folks who dreamed these monetary black holes up exempted themselves from their gravitation pull? Did we fall asleep at the switch? Yes. But now we’re awake and we have to bring sanity back to government. We all have to put aside our left vs. right proclivities for a time and get these bums out, demand that they live in the America they create, and destroy the golden parachutes they have sewn for themselves. When each elected official knows from the start that they will not make a career in politics; they will not feather their own bed for retirement, and they will have to play by the rules they make; then we can have our genuine, civil, debate about the correct direction for the country. Until then, we are doomed.
Real Estate and the housing market, the underpinnings of much of our economy, are jeopardized by the looming default as well. For most middle class and first-time home buyers, government sponsored loan programs are the only way they can afford to purchase a home. Most of the loans being made for homes in America today are either FHA, VA, or USDA program loans with low down payments and low interest rates. If the government defaults, those programs are in serious hot water. Nationwide, if home purchases grind to a halt, it could throw a very tenuous recovery back into recession. It’s all connected folks. When I do the wrong thing, it affects you, however small the ripple may be. When Washington does the wrong thing, the result is a tsunami of negative side effects. I am worried about my country. I still believe we can right the ship, but it’s going to hurt for a while and will take tremendous courage. Let’s do this.
All Real Estate
All The Time
stakacsrealtor 