I Need a Special Interest Group

I need someone who has the time and money to go to the offices of all of my representatives and lobby for what I need. I can’t do it. I’m caught between trying to make a living, taking care of my kids, at least financially, and taking care of my parents as their mental and physical facilities run down. (Okay, Mom, I know, not yet, but …)

I’m in the group that knows that Social Security won’t be able to take care of all of my retirement needs, but I also know that I won’t have a corporate retirement plan to help with the shortfall. I look at medical coverage and wonder how I’m going to be able to afford it when I retire. Heck, I’m even beginning to wonder how I’ll be able to afford it in a few months. And I certainly don’t expect to have medical coverage that’s as good as my parents or union members.

In comes the new administration, ready to make major changes to try to help us. And the political action committee representatives will be there. The unions’ reps, the teacher’s reps, the AARP’s reps, the solar initiative’s reps, the gas company’s reps, everyone will have representation trying to support bills, trying to pass legislation that will help their special interest groups.

But not me. I want to be in a special interest group. One that will help me and my future! One that will lobby for support for my children so that they won’t be saddled with all the bills of my parents and my generation.

We need to think of our future. We need our kids to be well educated so that they will be  able to compete in the global economy. We need them to be able to support themselves and hopefully us when we need it. We need social security to be revamped into something that isn’t borrowing from the future but is funding itself. How about putting us on the same plan that Congress gets or else putting Congress on Social Security? Either way would force Congress to finally take action to improve the system.

We need universal healthcare to take away the uncontrollable costs of medicine from the elderly and the unemployed. And we need oversight to control the costs.

We need open government. We need to know what is in each bill and no longer allow our politicians to put pork in the bills. Compromises are important, but the self-centered interest of individual political members has got to change.

We need to pull together to get this country back on solid ground. And that doesn’t mean only helping the groups with political pull. It means considering what is best for everyone, now, and in the future.

© by Judy Kane  2009