What will it take for us to wake up?  How long will we sit like children waiting for positive action?  Again, I sat in on Ralph Norman’s telephone town hall January 2nd of this new year expecting to be part of the give and take about issues that are vital to all of us.  However, only the congressman talked and talked and talked.  He assured us that all is well in the government, that the tax break had done wonders for the economy and the average citizen.  We didn’t get to say, “But many of us are living paycheck to paycheck while we see the 1 percent getting bigger and bigger bonuses, houses and boats, and we are terrified about the Republican $22 trillion dollar debt -- yes, $22 trillion -- saddling every single man, woman and child in this country with hundreds of thousands to pay it off in the never-never land that is dawning.” He gleefully touted getting rid of regulations (you know, those guarantees that our food, air and water will be safe, our parks and coastline protected and free from companies willfully despoiling them for profit, our medical procedures regulated.)

No mention of Republican leaders taking money from Russian oligarchs.

The bottom line, Mr. Norman, is while you and your colleagues are doing just fine with your salaries and perks while the government is on partial shutdown, we the people are woefully undereducated about our government, burdened by our own commitments and consequently prone to the painful, persistent and pernicious problems you pretend to solve, notably our infrastructure and health care.