“All of us will have to up our game.” - Barack Obama

I just watched President Obama’s speech where he presents a joint session of Congress with The American Jobs Act.  

His central theme? ”All of us will have to up our game.”

Alright I’m listening.

During this speech President Obama’s tone is serious, slightly anxious and quite compassionate.  He spends about half of the time setting up one-sided arguments against the Republicans who sternly oppose anything Obama says and does.  

During the other half of the time, president gets real with this audience, who clearly love their politics more than they love the country they live in.  I feel that being in Congress must be a luxurious, exciting lifestyle, one that overshadows the realities of the rest of America.  It must be such a distraction from the big picture: making America the top super power in the world again.  How else could someone be so cold to their fellow country-men-and-women?   Keeping the wealth and prestige for themselves while others struggle more than ever before.  Yachts.  Private Jets.  Greed.

I love the reference to Warren Buffett, who gets real with his fellow rich friends by saying, “My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.”  I wonder how many of these billionaires would actually stand up and agree with him.

How many millionaires and billionaires would give a bit of what they have to help make their country better?

give to help make someone else’s family’s survival easier?   

give to improve the education level of our entire country?

give to make our country the healthiest country in the world?

give to make our country the model for the rest of world?

How could any Americans think we should be running around changing other countries’ governments and economies?  We cannot even fix our own without a terrible politics-based fight.  Get with the times people!  Our current world is different from the past, and we need to adapt to the changes.  There are more people here than we thought we would have… but they’re here and they’re ready to make this country work.  Why can’t everyone win?  

My father complains every day about how all of the roads around our neighborhood need to be paved.  While I’ve told him it’s best to complain to someone who has authority in that department, I understand his frustration.  It’s time to shift the money from war-hatred-greed-driven enterprises to improve our infrastructure, be it literally as roads and bridges and figuratively as education, health and technology.

Let’s see if 

a. The American Jobs Act passes.

b. Democrats don’t have to bend their values.

c. The American people see any positive changes.

I will leave you with this…

“We have to be able to out-build, out-educate and out-innovate every other country on Earth.” -Barack Obama