This is my recommended read for the day. Someone may have already sent you this in an e-mail, but I suggest you copy and paste this into an e-mail to everyone in your address book. In their eagerness to demonize President Bush, people forget that Congress has a lower approval rating than W does.  That, in itself is pathetic.

545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and
then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans
are against deficits, we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against
inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on
appropriations.

The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme
Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly,
legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems
that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that
problem was created by the Congress.

In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty
to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private,
central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.
They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a
congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't
care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has
the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it
is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that
what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con
regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive
amount of gall.  No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who
stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can
only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole
responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and
approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? She is the
leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president,
can approve any budget they want.   If the president vetoes it, they can
pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not
replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence
and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not
traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain
truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it
must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ.

If they do not receive social security but are on a n elite retirement
plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they
hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice
they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and
from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into
the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like 'the  economy,'
'inflation,' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take
an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable 100%' by the people
who are their bosses  provided the voters have the gumption to manage
their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
[Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.]

What you do with this article now that you have read it is up to you,
though you appear to have several choices:

    1.     You can send this to everyone in your address book, and hope
they do something about it.
    2.     You can agree to vote against everyone that is currently in
office, knowing that the process will take several years.
    3.     You can decide to run for office yourself and agree to do
the job properly.
    4.     Lastly, you can sit back and do nothing, or re-elect the
current bunch.