Government not built for immediate change

Daniel F. Olivier, Bullhead City, Ariz.

Saturday, Feb. 16, 2008 | 2:04 a.m.

We are hearing a lot of chatter about “change” from the presidential candidates, and that is what a large number of voters, especially the young and uninitiated, are clamoring for. The only problem is nobody seems to know or is able to express what they want changed, except the obvious — a new president or maybe a new Congress.

Young people are declaring they want a “change in the way things are done in Washington” or an “end to the bickering to get things done for the good of the country.” Oh, it sounds very profound and reasonable but the catch is everybody or every group has a different idea about what is “good for the country.”

Thus all the “bickering and arguing,” and no one person is going to do much to end it. Actually, our forefathers deliberately devised our system of checks and balances, wherein lies the “bickering and arguing” because they wanted to change as little as possible and make it difficult to do that.

That is why a minority in Congress is able to block a lot of major ideas from becoming law, even as good as that legislation might be perceived by the majority of voters. Even then it might pass Congress and be vetoed by the president, and then a minority in Congress can sustain the president’s veto.

In fact, the only way to assure “ending the bickering and getting things done” is to end divided government by voting a straight party ticket to get Congress and the president on the same page, and even then half the country will still be angry and upset. Sad but true.