The Problem with Politicians

I recently read an article from Fox News about Timothy Geithner and how he is in hot water during the AIG Bailout Hearings. You can find this article at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/16/geithners-battered-image-faces-test-aig-bailout-hearing/, but now that I think of it, this reminds me of an editorial I wrote for my school's newspaper back in November and I'm hoping will be featured soon.

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Almost a year ago, the Presidential Election ended and millions of Americans expected change. I’ll admit that some change has occurred, but I also call it hypocrisy.

We all know that some of our tax dollars are the paychecks for our politicians, but I don’t think our politicians are living up to what we expect them to do. Last week I believe it was, I was watching Fox News before leaving for school and to my surprise, I found out that the Congress isn’t meeting as often as it should be. According to reports, the Houses of Congress were meeting five days per week when George W. Bush was President. But now, reports show that on average, Congress now meets once a week on their respective floors. Honestly, Congress is saying they want to accomplish their goals and yet they’re not meeting as often as they should be in order to do that.

Now, had Congress been meeting as often as they should, the investigation with Representative Charlie Rangel would have been over possibly by the end of September. While his constituents are paying taxes for his salary, he is requesting that the taxes be raised and yet he himself has owed taxes since 1993. I wonder why he didn’t admit to that until now.

In addition to the problems in Congress, there is great hypocrisy behind the doors of the White House. I’m not sure how many know this, but Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, has failed to pay his Social Security taxes since 2001. Now, I know Geithner has repaid those taxes, but that doesn’t mean that he can keep doing that because he could eventually get in trouble for it. Now, Senator Thomas Daschle, President Obama’s nomination for the Secretary of Health also failed to pay taxes adding up to $128,000! Imagine that – a Senator owing that much money in taxes and still holding a position in the Senate! Honestly, why is it that these two people owe taxes, Geithner gets confirmed by the Senate, but Daschle doesn’t?

This hypocrisy needs to stop because quite honestly, this is a huge waste of taxes. If I was paying taxes right now and eventually found out that they are going to corrupt politicians, I would be warning the people I know about where their taxes to the Federal Government are going.