Greetings and Salutations;

Well,  it is finally the last day of 2016….New Year’s Eve.    I have to say that this year is one that I am just as glad to see the end of.    Sadly,   we shall start 2017 off with the Inauguration of the donald as President of the United States.   This is unspeakably bad for so many reasons.

However,   I am more interested in talking about the donald’s claim to be “Draining the Swamp”,  and the fact that so many voters seemed to be motivated by frustration with the current Federal Government,  and wanting change.   Let me do a quick comparison between HRC and the donald on that whole “Change” thing.

President Obama has,  in the last eight years,  performed some  minor miracles with the United States.  To touch on a few of them:

• His administration tracked down and killed Osama Bin Laden.
• He inherited an economy in shambles, now it is in considerably better shape.
• The Stock Market was tanking  NOW,  the Stock Market is at record highs;  
• Companies were shutting down,  causing massive job loss.  NOW,  new businesses are opening up and growing and job growth has been on a steady upward swing.
• the Federal Deficit which was causing a huge growth in the National Debt,  has been cut by 3/4.
• He managed to get the first, real healthcare insurance reform in the history of the country passed.
• Our international reputation was in shambles, but since he took office,  our international reputation has Improved every year.

And what is more impressive about this is that he did this and many more things in spite of the absolute, unending opposition of Congress,  and the unending fire hose of racist attacks by citizens.

Now….Hillary Clinton   ran for the office,  and much of her platform was to continue to expand and continue these accomplishments by President Obama.  Her plans were to change how the Federal Government worked,  through careful and thoughtful actions.  Sadly,  the Electoral College chose to ignore their responsibility and put the donald into office.

Now then…what did the donald bring to the table.   From day one,  it is true that he mentioned “Change”…although his favorite phrase was “Drain the Swamp”.   Alas,  now that he has taken the office,  here is what he actually will bring to it.

• He wants to eliminate the ACA during his first 100 days in the office.  This will mean that the insurance companies will be free to return to the same,  abusive actions they gloried in for years,  including massive premium increases,  denying insurance for pre-existing conditions,  dropping people who use their policies,  putting caps on payouts and a host of other actions that made it impossible for millions of Americans to get health insurance for years.   The immediate effect will be that close to 20 million Americans will lose their insurance coverage.
• He has packed his Cabinet with billionaires  who have no experience or knowledge about running the departments they have been put in charge of.  Not only does it appear that the only qualification for holding a Cabinet level Job in the donald’s administration is to have given him a lot of money.   No Change THERE and I would be hard put to call that “Draining The Swamp”.
• Every one of the people,  save ONE, that he has put on his Cabinet and assigned to run an agency of the government has a long record of being totally against that agency.  This means that their only goal is likely to disassemble the agency and destroy it.  No changes there, as the Right-Wing has wanted to remove the agencies that constrain their greed and protect the rest of the Citizens for decades.
• He has announced massive tax cuts for the 1%  who have most of the money in America.   No change there.
• He has claimed that he will do all this improvement of infrastructure,  yet has no way to pay for it!  No change there.
• It is a fact that almost every economist who looks at his economic plans says that they will cause a huge drop in revenue,  so,  even if he does little or nothing to improve the country’s infrastructure,  it will cause the deficit to spike upwards and cause a huge growth in the debt…Guess what?   No change there.
• To touch on the Cabinet again…during the campaign,  the donald was spitting fire over HRC’s giving a speech to Goldman Sachs.  Well,  guess who he has added to his administration?   Several executives from Goldman Sachs, of course. 
• In addition,  he has said many things about getting the lobbyists out of the government’s way.   Well,  again…guess what he has added to his administration?   SEVERAL Lobbyists.

So…it should be pretty clear from even this small sample,  which Candidate was the real proponent of change for America.

Now,  in case you think I have forgotten the voters…do not worry…I am getting to us.   I say that we, as Americans do NOT want change in our Federal Government.   Here is what I base my observation on.   For most of my life,  in EVERY election the incumbents are returned to office more than 90% of the time.   Look at the state America is in right now.   It is that way because we have a Congress that has better tenure than many Universities.   The Republicans, in spite of holding a controlling percentage of the House,  and using that to pass laws which have hurt many, average Americans,  have NO worries about their job.  They know that they are there until they decide to leave, and there are few things that make that less likely.

I am of the opinion that all you that are reading this should do two things.

1. If you are REALLY for change…then take time to communicate those desires to your Representatives.
2. If they do not work on those changes, or ignore you…work to get them voted out of office.

Until we do that, there is not a one of us that can whine about government not changing.

God Help Us

Bee Man Dave