When politicians pretend to care, people pay the price

When politicians pretend to care, people pay the price
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 15, 2014

The controversy surrounding New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has left many in the media focusing on the scandal while avoiding the most important aspect of all. Christie showed compassion after Hurricane Sandy. He also showed that politics meant nothing to him when as a Republican, he showed appreciation for President Obama and put the people first.

That meant a lot to people across the country because frankly, most Americans are fed up with everything being political. Most of us are not focused on politics. Our political differences are in the proper perspective. In other words, they are not at the top of our to do list. Taking care of the country and the people of this nation matter a hell of a lot more than taking political sides.

The Christie scandals go much deeper because all of the accusations along with the outcomes robbed us of the thought someone in office said what most of us believe. We are stronger when we work together.

When we hear a politician say that unemployment insurance coverage doesn't need to be extended for the long term unemployed, that says they don't care if we can pay our bills and take care of our families or not. We also remember during the election we heard the same folks in congress scream about the lack of jobs even though it was there job to come up with bills to put us back to work.

We also heard that they do not even think about the veterans discharged from the military without jobs to support their families afterwards or the fact that many of them are unemployed.

Figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the jobless rate for Iraq and Afghanistan vets was 10 percent in October, down slightly from the 10.1 percent rate in September, but the same as the 10 percent recorded on Veterans Day 2012.

The VA says now the rate of unemployed veterans is 7.3%.

Did members of congress think of them? No. Even though the military is downsizing the ranks leaving thousands of out on their own and will increase over the next few years.

Did members of congress think of the troops when they cut food stamps? No they didn't. It is a safe bet to assume they didn't have a clue how bad it was for them but food banks and charities did. Imagine being in Afghanistan risking your life while your family back home has to live off food stamps and charities to eat.

A Fort Hood area charity just changed its name to reflect their mission. Operation Once in a Lifetime changed their name to Operation Phantom Support.

On average, about 600 people a week come through the pantry, impacting about 1,500 people through the food provided.

That is just from one Fort Hood area charity.

When members of congress said they wanted to kill the Affordable Care Act instead of fix it, they told us it didn't matter to them if we were able to go to the doctor without going into bankruptcy. We notice they had plenty of time to fix what was wrong instead of just trying to kill the bill. Now they complain it is bad but never once apologized to us for not fixing what we needed.

They also didn't bother with a tiny detail that while there are over 21 million veterans in this country (21,978,000) 8.76 million are enrolled and only 3.74 million veterans receive disability compensation.

Where do members of congress think these veterans get healthcare from when even they admit most veterans entitled to VA benefits won't go to the VA?

As bad as it has been for average Americans just trying to make ends meet, think of how hard it has been for military families and veterans. None of this has been good but people in Washington decided they just didn't have to care anymore. Much like Christie ended up showing the people of New Jersey that they really didn't matter as much as he pretended they did.

The media fails to see all they have been missing but the public has been shutting off their broadcasts and canceling subscriptions because they don't pay attention to what matters to us either.