If you think about it, there are many people who make a career and a very good one might I add out of being a politician. However, where does one actually learn to be a politician? I mean I know there are political science majors out there but I can’t remember how many politicians I’ve seen out there that actually were political science majors. A high percentage of politicians were formerly lawyers and many of them come from wealth. That in and of itself is an interesting fact to note.
So we’ve all heard about the wealthy in our country. The top 1%, 5% or 10% of income earners depending on which survey or statistic you are looking at. All of our politicians fit very easily into the top 10% of income earners in this country and they make decisions that affect the vast majority of Americans. When you consider that the bottom 75% of all income earners in the United States make well under $70,000, you have a pretty unique situation where the minority controls and makes decisions that affect the majority in this country. When you see things in this light, is it any wonder why Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney caught so much flack for his $10,000 bet snafu during the debates? The real question is how “in touch” are our politicians with the plight of the majority of Americans today? Are they just like us and thus understand our plight or are they totally different? You should answer this for yourself. This question is a very momentous one when you consider the fact that every decision politicians make affect our personal finances in one way or the other. There is nothing that happens in this country that’s not politically motivated in one way or another. If you don’t believe me, stay tuned to this blog series and we’ll explore that in more depth within the weeks and months ahead.
Career politicians as far as I’m concerned are “made up careers” as you don’t go to school to learn to be a politician. As I already pointed out, it’s interesting to note that just about all politicians we know of all come from wealth. Why is that? I believe it is because it’s the wealth and money that runs this country…not an electoral college, not your senators, not even your president. Yes it may be President Obama that’s our current president and based on that fact, you may think he’s the one that’s running our country and making decisions. If what you thought to be true about politics turned out not to be true, when would you want to know?
All Presidents have a “presidential cabinet” that they confer with to make decisions that affect our country. The real question is who is in the president’s cabinet and how did they end up there. If you dig a little into history, you’ll find that most of the cabinet appointments of most presidents are done as a response to personal or political favors. It’s the old you scratch my back and when the time is right, I’ll scratch your back. If you truly want an unbiased presidential cabinet, then our system would be set up to allow the voters to elect the cabinet and not the president. To also do away with the “wealth factor” as a major contributor and seemingly silent requirement to run for office, take away campaign funding and give each candidate equal footing with $10 donations from each citizen and you’d have people elected not based on wealth but based on true merit. When you have our President running around the country to “friends of his” that are hosting $1,000 a plate dinners and raising millions of dollars over the span of a few hours on a campaign stop, it makes wealth a very significant factor in the race for a political seat.
In concluding, I believe that because our government comes from wealth, they don’t understand the plight of the everyday citizen. And since our politicians are out of touch, they can raise taxes at the twinkle of an eye and make any other decision they want to because they know it does not really affect them and even if it did, it would be immaterial at best. But what’s immaterial to the top 10% of income earners is very significant to the bottom 75% of income earners. There is much more to the politics of personal finances that you are unaware of and over the course of this blog series, we’ll be sure to open your eyes to that which you don’t see so you better understand why you should care about the interrelationship between politics and your personal finances.
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