I get nervous when our government rushes to make major decisions over the length of a weekend. Something in the pit of my stomach gets anxious that big plans made over a weekend will have big holes in it. When our Congress and president are moving at the speed of lightning with their hair on fire, I don’t feel comforted by their sense of urgency. I feel scared, like pee-on-floor scared. I am filled, not with comfort, but with dread that they are just going to make terrible decisions in all the haste.
My daughters took longer to deliberate over their college choices than our electeds are taking to look at this monster. I spend more time planning a vacation than our electeds are spending deciding on the bailout.
Much of the sound bites coming out of our representatives are incredibly familiar. I can still hear the echoes from our elected officials after 9/11, and the disastrous, unanimous, costly decision to go to war. I have learned to be worried when Republicans and Democrats agree on something, and worse yet, when they insist that it is for own good.
As part of the American tax-paying public, I feel like I deserve more information about the bank situation, and I want a say in the decision about how we deal with it. I don’t want to be treated like a damsel in distress waiting for the government to pretend to be the prince who will rescue me. I am tired of our government trying to pretend to be heroic. Please, for the good of this country, stop trying to save us.
I get to vote on new football stadiums. I get to vote for someone who is running unopposed as precinct captain. But when it comes to the bailout, I am going to have a lobby-influenced group of people decide? Are you kidding me?
I can understand a temporary bandage to just get the bleeding banks on the table, but from there, let’s take more than a weekend and consider the options.
I don’t believe my representatives, even though I chose them, are the experts I would turn to unfurl this mess on Wall Street over the weekend. In fact, I would like my representatives to have enough courage and wisdom to say this will take a more thorough investigation, and they will need to bring together more advisors to consider options.
I don’t want to be “bailed-out,” saved or rescued. I want more questions asked and answered, and I want to vote on how we go forward. I don’t want to be threatened by our government that the only solution is a fast one. I feel like we are all being financially taken as hostages. Show some thoughtfulness. I want to see great minds approaching this problem with surgical precision and planning. I want a government that recognizes it does not have the confidence of the country, and it truly must earn our confidence in this situation.
We are in a situation where how we do it is more important than what we do.
We are in a lose-lose position. When are our electeds going to understand that the “change” we are unanimously seeking is about how we do things. This is the perfect opportunity to show us that they are listening.
Sarri Gilman is a freelance writer living on Whidbey Island and director of Leadership Snohomish County. Her column runs every other Tuesday in The Herald. You can e-mail her at features@heraldnet.com.
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