Too often career politicians treat the government like it’s their personal plaything to be used and abused for their special benefit. It makes me angry.
We’ve all heard the stories of President Clinton renting out the White House to raise campaign cash. He allowed people to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom if they’d make big contributions to the Democratic National Committee.
Last year, Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota held a fundraising event on top of Mt. Rushmore. Daschle not only used his connections to get on top of the national monument where other visitors are not allowed. He then used his unfair special access to give lobbyists and large donors unfair special access.
Now Vice-President Al Gore’s campaign is also exploiting his position. Gore wanted the media to take pictures of him on the Connecticut River. But with the summer drought the river wasn’t high enough. The local utility was ordered to release 4 billion gallons of water into the river, which raised the water level enough to allow Gore to paddle down the river for the media. Price to taxpayers: $7.1 million.
Now that’s all wet if you ask me. The director of the Vermont Department of Natural Resources, said, “They won’t release the water for the fish when we ask them to, but somehow they find themselves able to release it for a politician.”
The longer politicians hold power the more they think this country belongs to them personally. Our national treasures don’t belong to politicians. Instead of dumping billions of gallons of water, let’s dump career politicians.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.