Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

   I have just read an article about how our state legislators have been using their supposed powers to take advantage of almost anything they want to name as a privilege. This may sound like a new game and in some states it may well be fairly recent that this kind of action is being taken. Truth is that the national legislative body, better known as Congress, has been on this joy ride for a long time, 60 years.

   A very popular farm bill was going through the required 3rd reading in both houses and someone stuck a rider to the bill. That rider would not have found favor with the voting public had they known it was added as it gave the Congress the right to basically thumb their noses at the people that elected them and allowed for what we have today.

   The members of Congress need only serve one term to get retirement. That retirement is full pay and benefits as if they were still expected to be present for legislative duty. They can then go on with becoming a lobbyist or do speaking tours and all the rest. They do not have to ask the voting public for any of these benefits, they just simply decide that this is what they want and put it in place for themselves without the need to clear it with us.

    If this sounds like a train wreck, it should. When you realize that most of the people that serve in Congress make decisions in situations that they have no idea of, it is not good. By that I mean most have not served in the military, yet they decide the fate of people in the military both during years of service and after they retire. They make decisions for ordinary people that retire on a pension and yet most have never known of anyone that retired on a pension as they are all pretty well off to start with. They make judgements on legal issues and most never studied law, and that includes the Supreme Court as there is no requirement for legal training to be named to serve. Will not say that is the case at present but it has happened. As for today’s lot of justices we have mostly rotten apples not cream of crop.

   Members of Congress can get away with almost anything, write a bad check for thousands of dollars and they are just told to make it right and they walk away as if nothing happened. Let a member of the military write a bad check and he or she will most likely get an article 15 unit level punishment which could include loss of pay, loss of rank, extra duty and a bar to reenlist. The service member has no direct impact on how our country is run, can not enact a law, is not a visible representative of the government but the service member is certainly treated as if this was the crime of the century.