One of the things we hear every day is that our government must operate like a business or a family in order to be fiscally responsible. Another is that it is cheaper and more productive to out-source the jobs and therefore the responsibilities of our government. There is also the constantly repeated whopper that democracy equals capitalism and therefore we must support a free and unrestrained market.

Nowhere in our constitution does it say that we are to make a profit. Without a profit motive we are not a business. Nowhere in our constitution does it say we are to earn the money our nation spends, and therefore our government is not like a family. So, we need neither a CEO nor a parent to tell us how to manage the funds we need to accomplish our established goals. We must simply list our needs and tax ourselves accordingly.

Many of our Senators and Representatives have told us that out-sourcing government jobs makes better use of our tax dollars. Well, consider this: when the government hires a letter carrier or a soldier they receive a salary, health care and a pension which is paid by taxes. When we out-source those jobs the people who take them get a salary, health care and a pension too, but so do those who form the new bureaucracy and hierarchy required by the company being paid to hire and train them. In fact, the cost is greatly increased and the governments ability to direct and control the activities involved is significantly reduced.

Lastly is the idea that democracy equals capitalism. It is not true. Simply put, democracy is a form of government and capitalism is an economic philosophy. They are mutually independent. Pick up a paper or watch the news today and you will see that there are capitalist societies run by dictators and socialist societies with democratic governments. The evidence that democracy does not equal capitalism could not be more clear. However, the lie is so pervasive in the U.S. that most just accept the lie even in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary.

So, why the lies? As one of my professors used to say, the answer to the question is intuitively obvious to the casual observer. However, we have been inoculated against thinking about it. Most of us were born into families with a political identity. As such, to question what the political leaders of our party have to say is to disrespect our parents and to generate an identity crisis in ourselves. When they tell us we must run government like a business we listen. When they tell us out-sourcing is good we listen. Because we have been taught since the first grade that the words democracy and capitalism are interchangeable, we believe.

The people demonstrating on Wall Street and around the country quit listening and they don’t believe anymore. They see that the lies take money out of the pockets of the poor and deliver it to the rich. They see that the lies continuously decrease the ability of government to protect the workers from the CEO’s. They see that the lies make a lot of people want to get above all others – instead of helping each other to rise together. The lies cause the government to squander our taxes on bad policy, limit our ability to collect the revenue we need for the common good , and prohibit us from having a microphone for our dissenting voices.

The people demonstrating on Wall Street and around the country, and those at home who send money, and those at home who agree but don’t participate, those people, they aren’t listening and they don’t believe anymore.

I just heard Senator Warner on Jansing and Co. say, in regard to our economic problems, that in order to fix those problems everyone needs to have "skin in the game". This phrase has been used a lot lately and I have this to say about that.

The working class in this country have had the skin peeled off their collective behinds for the past 30 years. We have made our contribution in lost wages, lost vacations, lost education, extremely expensive health care, lost futures, and more recently in lost jobs and homes.

Just how much more "skin" does the current congress want us to put in the "game"? Simply using the phrase is an insult to every person in the 99%, and its time the 1% started paying their fair share.

I sincerely hope our Senators and Representatives can refrain from any further references to the working class having "skin in the game" and go about fixing the problem by attacking the causes and not the victims.

With less respect every day,

Guy Sturino