VOTE

Vote!   

We live in a representative democracy.  Do you know what that means? It means that there are really too many of us in these United States to have everyone vote on every single thing the government needs to do.  So, we elect someone to represent our interests. The House of representatives is tasked with all the money management for the US. They are elected every two years. Think about that.  If you don’t like the way the House of Representatives is spending your tax dollars, every two years you have an opportunity to change your representative! But, you can’t help in that endeavor if you don’t vote.  If your current representative isn’t voting on issues to suit you, the ONLY way to change that is to vote. Vote him/her out and vote soemone else in. If you vote, you have power. If you don’t vote, you are powerless.  Consider the following: if everyone votes his/her conscience every single election would your representative to congress be more careful to listen to his/her constituents? I think he/she would! As it stands now, so many people don’t vote that those who are in power just assume they will remain in power and use their own priorities to guide their votes.  They don’t have to listen to their constituents because complain as we will, not all of us will show up on election day to really make our voices heard.

All major presidential appointments must be approved by the Senate.  If your senators are not listening to you, had you considered getting rid of him/her through your vote?  Senators are elected for 6 years but their elections are staggered so that only one third of the Senate changes with each election.  This provides some continuity for the Senate as a whole. What that means for each national election is that every two years we vote on every single Representative and one third of our Senators.  We could completely change our governmental priorities in only one election!

The Government of the United States has divided responsibilities for a reason.  We must have checks and balances so that no one branch of government is too powerful.  In today’s government, we don’t have that. The Supreme Court, the House of Representatives, the Senate and the President all have different job descriptions and in each job description there is a check on the other branches of government.  Together the House of Representatives and the Senate make up the Congress. But, there are even checks and balances between the two houses of the Congress. We make a difference in how our government prioritizes through our vote.

In 2016 nearly 42% of all eligible voters in the United States did NOT vote. From my Facebook page alone, I can see that many of those who didn’t vote do complain.  How is that? Each of those people had a chance to have their voices heard. Each had a chance to determine another course for our government and yet, they stayed home on election day. 

Our governmental representatives are in the process of making it much harder to vote than it used to be.  Our governmental representatives are NOT making prevention of election interference from other countries a priority.  I would suggest that in this political climate each and every single one of us who is eligible to vote must vote in order to make sure that we are allowed to vote in the futures.

What does this blog have to do with the tides of healing?  Think about it. In the past two years there have been two major tax cuts for the rich and only one temporary tax cut for the middle class and poor.  The Affordable Care Act has been shredded and it’s harder and harder to get medical care unless one takes out a second mortgage and where does that leave those who cannot afford to own a home?   And, although the minimum wage at its inception was supposed to be a living wage and was for many years, our Congress in its wisdom has decided the minimum wage will not increase with inflation.  Our congressional representatives are NOT representing the needs or opinions of the middle and poor classes at present and the ONLY way to change that is to change the representatives. Voting is part and parcel of healing because it’s the only way to get a representative government for those of us who need professional help to heal.