They Feel Your Pain but,,,Can They Really Help You?

Next time you hear a candidate for President speak, take a good note of what they are actually saying. More often than not, you will hear them list a litany of ills that exist in America. One thing is sure, most all politicians are good identifying problems. They can talk all day about "hot button" issues that affect "everyday" Americans. You know, those "kitchen table" issues that they know everyone is talking about. But, rarely do they really offer a solution (other than spending money).

Ask yourself. Have those politicians actually done all the things that they said they would do in the last and previous election cycle? The odds are that they might have done the easy ones; the ones everybody agrees on. That's it! Not much more than that. For example, the Democrats promised a number of items in their "A New Direction for America". (Click to Review those Promises from Nancy Pelosi's Webstie). Now, if you look at that list, you will that the only thing that they have really managed to do in the last 2 years is to raise the minimum wage. Beyond that, the tough issues are still open. We are still in Iraq. Oil and gasoline prices have nearly tripled since the Democrats took control of the Congress. College education has gone up nearly 16% in the last two years while real income and wages have gone up less than 5 percent. Like education, health care has gone up nearly 12 percent against real incomes. Certain food prices have double thanks to the Congressional action on increase ethanol usage. And, nothing has been done to improve Social Security or reduce the risk that it will "die" under its on weight in the future.

The best thing you can do when looking at a candidate is to see if they have really done things in there past to make America better. Don't just look at the last year since they started running. Usually, when someone decides to run for an office, they, all of a sudden, try to create a voting or activity record that they can run on. Prior to that, they, literally, may have done nothing! Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain are all Senators. They all have a "history" of working in an elected office. Many sites on the internet can show you the way. For example, the Washington Post has a Voting Record Database on all of our friendly Washington Politicians (Click for a popup to that site). Wikipedia will give you a nice overview of each candidate. And, there are endless resources throughout the internet that can help "cutting through the fog" when it comes to our Presidential and Congressional candidates.

Note: The Democrats would argue that they haven't accomplished what they promised because President Bush and the Republicans haven't worked with them. They knew that President Bush would still be in office and that they would "not" have a "veto-proof" majority when they made all those promises. So, did they tell the truth when they made them? You be the judge.