John Block Reports from Washington

 Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the Renewable Fuels Association, Wal-Mart Stores, Monsanto, and John Deere. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of a healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary—

The mid-term elections are just around the corner. That’s all you read about, all the news on radio and TV. Who’s ahead? Who’s behind? Can the President motivate his base? How powerful is the “Tea Party” movement?

I am delighted to see the public taking this election seriously. Get out and vote. And after the election hold their feet to the fire.

Our elected representatives have not served us well. They are responsible to the people – you and me. Think about it this way. We have a business with a CEO, a Board of Directors and the shareholders that own the business. Compare that to the President of the U.S., the Congress and the citizens. We are the citizens. We are the shareholders of our government. We should expect no less of our government than shareholders expect of their company.

But here is where we are. The Congress (our Board of Directors) never even passed a budget. They didn’t even appropriate money for the Department of Agriculture or any other department. They just passed a “continuing resolution” so we can keep operating as we have been. They failed to tell us the tax ground rules for the coming year. We don’t know. Will we experience a huge tax increase, as the Bush income tax cuts expire at the end of the year, or will they be extended? What about the estate tax. We have no death tax this year. Will it shoot back up to 55% next year?

We have a serious problem with illegal immigration, but the Congress has done nothing about that.

We have trade agreements that Congress won’t even look at.

Perhaps more important than anything else, we are running a 1.4 trillion dollar deficit in spending as far as the eye can see. We are piling up a mountain of debt that our children and grandchildren will be expected to shoulder. How irresponsible can you be!

Any company CEO and Board of Directors that would run a business like this would not last long. The shareholders would get rid of them. That’s what I hope the voters will do this November. And then, our government needs to make some very tough decisions. Fixing a broken business is not easy.

In closing, I would encourage you to access my website which archives my radio commentaries dating back 10 years and will go back 20 years when complete. Check on what I said back then. Go to www.johnblockreports.com.

Until next week, I am John Block in Washington.