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5 reasons to trust/distrust the government There are many reasons to trust our government; they keep us safe, they protect us and they even watch out for us. One of the main reasons that encourage us to trust the government today is due to the forethought and effort put into its creation by our founders. Our founding fathers were very careful to ensure that the government they were creating with the Constitution would prevent the imposition of a tyranny over the people. Three separate branches of government, all with their own distinct powers, would share power in order to govern. (Schmidt et al, 2010, pg. 0). In addition to this, a Bill of rights would ensure the basic rights of every individual. Our second reason as to why we trust the government is that each branch of government would have a system of checks and balances to over ride the others if needed. The president would have veto powers over the legislative branch, nominate federal judges, and can exercise his executive pardon privileges. The legislative branch requires the presidents to sign a bill, but can over ride his veto with enough votes. They also get to confirm his judicial appointments, and can amend the constitution.
The judicial branch can declare that a law or policy made by the other branches is unconstitutional. Checks and balances like these insure that one branch can check or stop the actions of the other branches. (Schmidt et al, 2010, pg. 52). The third reason why we trust the government is that there is a big emphasis on returning back to school. Pell grants are now being given to those who make less than 45,000 a year, this way they can return back to school and better themselves. Right now, even if you have a high school diploma, you don’t make anything over minimum wage.
So to encourage everyone to go back to school is a good thing. This way when people do get hired they will get someone with a degree of some sort. Another reason we trust the government is that our nation is safe due to the NYC police department’s fast response to Times Square. On May 1, 2010; NYC’s bomb squad was alerted to an S. U. V. in Times Square that had smoke coming out of it. They quickly evacuated the area and got people out of harm’s way. A robot was sent in to diffuse the homemade bomb made up of three canisters of propane, two five-gallon cans of gasoline, consumer-grade fireworks and two clocks with batteries.
The mayor said the device “looked amateurish. ” (FoxNews. com) The FBI worked hard and fast to find out who it was and when they found out they sent out a “No Fly” list to the local airports and stopped a terrorist from fleeing the country. Faisal Shahzad is in custody after a failed attempt to bomb Times Square. They stopped this man and are now in the process of finding more people involved in this plot. No matter where you are and what you’re doing, someone is always watching to make sure that we are safe.
The last reason why we trust the government is there will be, in the next fiscal year, an increase in spending for the Department of Transportation and Homeland Security Agency. What will this mean for travelers? It will mean safer airports and railway systems for millions of people. How can they improve travel and security in the railways and airports? One way is to upgrade the air traffic control systems. The Federal Air Administration will get money to improve arrival and departure procedures by traffic controllers having more flexibility to manage traffic in busy airports.
Now in what ways can they improve or upgrade security in airports? A proposal that was made by the Department of Homeland Security was asking for new body imaging devices for airport checkpoints. They also want to get additional baggage screeners to detect explosives. To improve security the DHS is asking to expand the Federal Air Marshal Service. By doing this, there will be more Federal Air Marshals on international flights. The Constitution is not perfect however, and because of this many people today distrust the government for several reasons.
Our first main reason is that even with all the care that the founding fathers put into the Constitution, the states at that time still did not feel that that it had went far enough to protect the rights of the people and earn their trust. The First Congress of the United States proposed 12 amendments, of which 10 were ratified by the states. These first ten amendments became known as the “Bill of Rights” (archives. gov para 2). These amendments guarantee certain freedoms and rights of individuals and the states. When the government oversteps or is believed to have overstepped its bounds, it can be brought efore the court system to see if their actions were in keeping with the Constitution. Recent events (for example, several states challenging the recent healthcare bill on grounds of violating the 10th amendment) show that these amendments are still applicable to life in the 21st century. Another perfect example to not trust the government is because of the national debt. As of May 26, 2010 the national debt stood at $12,995,779,490,444. 52 (treasurydirect. gov). To help put that in perspective, if you lay that many one dollar bills end to end; it would be over a billion miles long and could go from the earth to the moon and back 2,576 times.
Our estimated Gross Domestic Product for 2010 is $14,253,000,000,000 (Congressional Budgeting Office, economic projections). We cannot continue to keep these spending patterns up as a nation. According to the CBO using their alternative fiscal scenario (the scenario that assumes medical costs and social security will continue to rise) federal debt held by the public will increase to 181 percent of the GDP by 2035 (CBO, Long Term Budget Outlook, page 14). It doesn’t take an accountant or economist to tell that we cannot sustain this indefinitely.
Greece and other Euro Zone nations are currently dealing with the effects of similar spending habits. Responsible spending cuts and/or higher taxes are needed to correct this. Can we trust our government to do this for us? How many politicians run on a platform of spending cuts, layoffs, and higher taxes? Are they more concerned with reelection or with the long-term well being of our country? How can the people trust the government, when the President lies to the people who voted him into office? One instance is before President George H. W. Bush was elected into office, he promised no new taxes.
What happened after he was elected into office? He raised the taxes. Another president that lied to the American people and the Supreme Court was Bill Clinton. President Clinton lied about having sexual relations with a White House intern. He not only lied to the people, but also lied to his family as well. And because of his actions, the House of Representatives impeached him. When President George W. Bush was in office, many Americans didn’t agree with him in why he proposed the war in Iraq. Because of this war he created a large deficit which he has passed on to President Obama. A gentleman by the name of James A.
Traficant Jr. has decided to run for Congress again. Now why would that bother us or anyone else? Here is his story and why we don’t trust the government. James has served in Congress, prior to his arrest, for nearly two decades. In 2002, he was found guilty of accepting bribes from businessmen and accepting kickbacks from staff members. He was the second person, ever in Congress, to be expelled because of his unethical conduct. James was acquitted from mob payoff charges in 1983 but lost a U. S. tax court case in 1987. He served time for racketeering, bribery, obstruction of justice and tax evasion.
Why would I want to vote for someone who was sent to prison for 7 years because of these acts he committed? According to our laws, Congress does not bar him from running again. The last reason as to why we don’t trust the government is the Health care issue. This subject has been going on for years and will continue to go on. Each year the cost of health care insurance rises and currently 46 million people don’t have health insurance. There are several reasons as to why they don’t; one is because employers can no longer afford to offer their employees decent insurance, it just costs too much.
There has been much debate and looking into Obama’s health care reform just doesn’t seem to cut the cake. He wants to create a government-sponsored health insurance program that would be available for all to use just as similar as Medicare is to people over the age of 65.. But there are many problems with that. Republicans are skeptical of this because they think that employers will go with the government ruined insurance (which will be cheaper) than the private one. I know that he means well but I just don’t think that I would trust the government to take care of my needs.
It’s bad enough that I have to rely on them to care for me and my family right now, I just don’t trust what the government says, they lie to protect themselves and to make them look good. Show me proof that this will work and maybe I might be convinced otherwise I will look at it as another promise broken by our government. References Associated Press. (2010). Traficant to Run as Independent for Old House Seat. Retrieved from http://www. foxnews. com/politics/2010/05/03/traficant-run-independent-old-house-seat/ Garrett, M. Herridge, C. Levin, M. (2010). American Who Recently Visited Pakistan Eyed in Times Square Bomb Plot.
Retrieved from http://www. foxnews. com/politics/2010/05/03/officials-reportedly-foreign-plot-times-square-car-bomb/ Jonas, D (2010). President Obama Budget Includes Air, Rail Improvements. Retrieved from http://www. management. travel/news. php? cid=Obama-budget-air-rail-security. Feb-10. 10 National Archives, Charters of Freedom. (2010). Preface to the bill of rights. Retrieved from http://www. archives. gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights. html Schmidt, S. W. , Shelley, M. C. , Bardes, B. A. , Maxwell, W. E. , Crain, E. , & Santos, A. (2010). American government & politics today (Central Texas College Edition) Boston, MA : Wadsworth.
The Congress of the United States Congressional Budget Office, ( 2009). CBO’s Economic Projections for Calendar Years 2009 to 2020. Retrieved from http://www. cbo. gov/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10871/economicprojections. xls The Congress of the United States Congressional Budget Office, (June 2009). The Long Term Budget Outlook. Retrieved from: http://www. cbo. gov/ftpdocs/102xx/doc10297/06-25-LTBO. pdf Unknown (2010). Road Drivers Weekly News; Eight Reasons Why Americans Don’t Trust the Government, Retrieved from: http://www. roaddrivers. org/whywedonttrustgov. htm