Here's Mud in Your Eye

Good morning, readers. I know it has been a week since I wrote my last blog entry, but sometimes a writer needs to take his own advice, shut up…and wait. Wait on the story to take shape.

Here in West Virginia it has been raining for days, and while we live in an area of the country that typically sees days of rain on end, the constant deluge of rain and upper-thirty’s, lower-forty degree temperatures begins to wear on a body. When even the hillsides can’t contain themselves any longer and end up in the roadways and when the mud cries out against more rain, everything becomes a battle – a battle to keep the dog’s paws clean, a battle to keep the carpet clean, a battle to keep the water outside and the heat inside. The rain and mud becomes pervasive. It’s in the truck, on the porch, in the stores and restaurants. It’s in the malls and even in the foyers of the churches. You can’t even turn on the television without seeing reports on the mud.

According to the Business Insider, half of these United States’ more than 330 million people live in just 9 states: California, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania, New York, Georgia, and Florida account for over 161 million residents.[1] To break that down even further, these United States is made up of 48 contiguous States; 50 States plus one District; 56 States, Districts, Commonwealths and territories, all of which are home to 3,141 counties and county equivalents.[2] Of those 3,141 county equivalents, 244 – a mere 7 ¾% of counties houses half of the American population, according to another Business Insider article.[3] That’s 161 million residents in Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Fe and San Francisco; Houston; Miami, Tampa, and the Space Coast; Washington D.C. and the Northern Virginia area; the New York City megalopolis and Boston; Atlanta; Seattle; Philadelphia and Chicago, to name a few.

Now, a list of the top 10 cities that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 reveals that San Francisco, San Jose, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Boston, Seattle, Philadelphia, and New York City all voted overwhelmingly Democrat in the 2016 Presidential election. In each of those cities, 10 of the most populous cities in these United States, Hillary Clinton received more than 61% of the vote. In San Francisco, an overwhelming 76.7% of voters cast a ballot for Clinton.[4]

What do those cities, their populations and voting metrics have in common with mud, you ask?

Politics.

Politics is a dirty game. Ask anyone who is involved.

Take for instance, Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Prior to 1987, Rep. Pelosi’s personal net worth was $0 dollars. At that time she had been an unpaid volunteer, intern, or DNC member and Chair. In 1987, Rep. Pelosi won a special election and began earning the base Congressional salary of $89,500 annually. Congress enacted annual pay raises between 1990 and 1993 to $133,600 (a whopping 33% pay raise over 4 years), which stood until 1998. Over the next ten years, Congress increased its own pay by an additional 25% pay raise to today’s $174,000. So, for Rep. Pelosi, her Congressional salary amounts to $4,539,900. Her net worth as reported by Ballotpedia in 2012, was $37,910,468.[5] Some reports, based on public disclosures for elected officials, have her anywhere between $58.7 million in debt and $72.1 million in the black. Granted, most of her net worth is attributed to her venture capitalist husband of 55 years, who owns stock in Facebook, Apple and Disney.[6]

Not to be outdone, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has a reported net worth of as high as $36.5 million. According to the Washington Post, $25 million of that is attributable to a gift given to his spouse in 2008.[7] Despite that “gift,” McConnell, who joined the Senate in 1985, amassed $4,690,100 through annual congressional salary. According to that same Washington Post article, McConnell has only voted against raising his own pay twice in his more than 30 years in the Senate.

So, politics is a dirty game. Politics is muddy, and mud is pervasive.

Let’s put this into context. Retired congressmen can earn almost $180,000 annual pension after 20 years in Congress under the “high three” plan. Those with as little as 5 years representing their constituency are eligible for $16,000 annually for the rest of their lives.[8] Compare that to the average Federal worker who earns $99,000 a year and is eligible for a pension of $38,000 after 35 years of service.[9]

Now consider that Federal worker might be asked to work between and after the holidays on the “promise” the same Congress who couldn’t put partisan politics aside long enough to keep the Government funded will follow historic precedent and pay them for the work anyway. With Pelosi claiming the President “has gotten what he wanted”[10] she and her fellow citizen legislators will go home for the holidays and enjoy a guaranteed $174,000 per year plus as much as $180,000 in pension, while the guy taking tickets at the gate to the Washington Monument works on promises.

That’s dirty.

Nowhere else in society can a man or woman look you in the eye, look into a CBS or NBC or CNN or Fox News camera and say, “we tried” while wearing an Armani suit or carrying a Diane von Furtstenberg purse, and amassing nearly 16 times his or her total career salary through spousal “gifts” or “investments” and not look dirty. Not even the weather man can get away with that.

So, while more than 50 percent of the American population lives in areas that vote Democrat, and two of the three states with the highest number of Federal workers[11] vote Democrat, the Republican-held House, Senate and Executive branch can’t pass a spending bill because of a wall? Are we in some crazy version of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream?"

“Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.” (1 Tim 3:2-3, NIV)

Christian, it’s time to take a stand. It’s time to realize that this President, this Congress, were raised up by our sovereign God to teach us that complacency is a sin. Complacency isn’t contentment. Complacency is laziness and failure to do God’s bidding. Complacency carries with it a steep price.

“At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent, who are like wine left on its dregs, who think, ‘The Lord will do nothing, either good or bad.’ Their wealth will be plundered, their houses demolished. Though they build houses, they will not live in them; though they plant vineyards, they will not drink the wine.” (Zeph 1:12-13, NIV)

So, pray. Wait on God’s leading, but do something. Don’t say, “I’m not a Federal worker, so I don’t care,” have compassion for your Federal workers. Don’t say, “I didn’t elect him. He’s not my President.” Pray for God to give him wisdom and for him to have an open mind and heart to hear God’s leading. Don’t say, “I don’t have an opinion on that because I don’t know anything about it.” Educate yourself and be ready to follow God’s leading – don’t close your own mind and ears to God’s leading. But whatever you do during this Christmas season, Christian, don’t forget.

God won’t.

“[Those] who think, ‘The Lord will do nothing, either good or bad.’” That’s just mud in your eye.

(Photo: TheStar)

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/half-of-the-us-population-lives-in-just-9-states-2016-6

[2] https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-many-counties-are-there-united-states

[3] https://www.businessinsider.com/densest-counties-in-america-2015-7

[4] https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/12/mapping-how-americas-metro-areas-voted/508313/

[5] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1upcHJ20HLtgZBPzCc68a0_pzdql_9LujAPkd3DEOlsw/edit#gid=2

[6] https://www.gobankingrates.com/net-worth/politicians/nancy-pelosi-net-worth/

[7] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/05/22/how-did-mitch-mcconnells-net-worth-soar/?utm_term=.915753e79653

[8] https://www.factcheck.org/2015/01/congressional-pensions-update/

[9] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/a-federal-employee-retirement-plan-is-a-good-model-for-better-retirement-saving

[10] https://www.apnews.com/ae348c51dfaf451ab2869375f4611106

[11] http://www.governing.com/gov-data/federal-employees-workforce-numbers-by-state.html