I Think It's Time To Grow Up

Every year, we the American people elect politicians that we believe are going to represent us in a responsible, adult way. We figure that they are going to handle crisis situations in a mature manner. However, this does not seem to be the case anymore in politics. Most recently, Democrats and Republicans have been butting heads over the current budgets. While the Democrats are proposing that a lot of money be cut out of the budget, the Republicans are demanding that the more money be cut. So the Republicans do not think the Democrats are cutting enough, and the Democrats think the Republicans are cutting too much. What ends up happening is yet another complete divide in the system with nobody trying to be civil about it. It even looked like there could have been a freeze for a while.

It seems that this political divide keeps on growing larger. While President Obama had recently called for unity in his Arizona speech and State of the Union address, the two sides keep fighting like crazy. What is really going on here is despicable.

Let’s take the state government in Wisconsin for example. Republican Governor Scott Walker proposed a bill that includes debt refinancing that would save taxpayers $165 million in 2011. However, this bill would end collective bargaining rights for nearly all of Wisconsin's public workers. Instead of the Democrats discussing this bill, they completely left the state. These do not sound like politicians, they sound like a teenager fighting with her parents and storming out when they did not get her way.

What we need in this country now more than ever are politicians who are willing to act like adults and work together. President Obama had it all right when he talked about unity. However, there is such a political divide in this country that something more needs to happen. In his State of the Union address, President Obama stated, “What comes of this moment will be determined not by whether we can sit together tonight, but whether we can work together tomorrow.” Well, it looks like they sat together that night, but they cannot work together now.


Trevor Kurtz
Communication Studies
Wilkes 2013