Washington has become saturated with dirty politics, corrupt elected officials and a horde of lobbyists. Unfortunately, they all have something in common: each has its own personal agenda. Our government rarely operates with the best interests of the people in mind. Our elected officials make decisions based on what lobbyists, big corporations, Wall Street and special interest groups desire. Our current Speaker of the House, John Andrew Boehner, is no exception.

A member of the Republican Party, John Boehner is the U.S. Representative from Ohio’s 8th congressional district and has served since 1991. During his tenure, his political agenda has supported “free trade” and the ratification of the U.S. treaty with the World Trade Organization (WTO). Amidst the debt ceiling and fiscal cliff catastrophes in 2012, and now the Sequester debacle, Speaker Boehner has displayed a complete lack of leadership in the House of Representatives. During a time when the American people are growing increasingly concerned about the direction our leaders are taking us, Speaker Boehner remains listless.

Since rising to political power, Mr. Boehner has voted reliably in favor of “free trade” agreements — NAFTA, CAFTA, and the WTO. In 2000, he voted against getting the U.S. out of the WTO. Since NAFTA, congressman Boehner has voted in favor of every trade treaty that has been proposed. These job-killing “free trade” agreements have resulted in either the loss, outsourcing or off-shoring of millions of American jobs.

Then there’s the issue of tax reform. John Boehner and his colleagues are not remotely interested in tax reform. He is only mildly interested in deficit reduction when the other party is in power. The key focus of Speaker Boehner and his Republican colleagues is tax reduction, which his party advertises as a benefit to the lower and middle classes. In reality, his agenda would primarily benefit his big donors and the wealthiest among us.

In regards to the debt ceiling and fiscal cliff negotiations, Speaker Boehner has accomplished little more than finger pointing and leading the Republican blame game against President Obama. During the debt ceiling and fiscal cliff negotiations, Speaker Boehner devised preliminary deals with Obama and presented them to the Republican members of the House, only to have his subordinates reject the deals. In the face of both of these failures, Boehner’s disastrous inability to unify House Republicans and Democrats became apparent.

With the economy in decline and our debt continuing to pile up at an alarming rate, we need leaders in Washington who act with the benefit of the average U.S. citizen in mind. We need a government free of corruption and dirty politics. We need leaders with the courage to lead us out of the economic mess we are in today. John Boehner’s poor handling of the debt ceiling and fiscal cliff negotiations have shown that he’s not the leader the U.S. needs. Spread the message so that next election season we can assure that Boehner is no longer among those in political power!

Print PDF