Mr. Rogers' Congress

I've had it. Completely, utterly fed up with this all.

I try to avoid discussing politics because let's face it, everyone has their own beliefs and people rarely change their minds. People will never truly see eye to eye on political issues. But what happened tonight is a travesty of epic proportions.

I was CNN.com catching up on the latest news when I discovered that this "Super" committee to deal with our budget deficit decided it couldn't get its act together and come to an agreement. $1.2 TRILLION hangs in the balance and the officials we ELECTED sat around on Capitol Hill for 5 months arguing like pre-schoolers.

When I registered to vote, I marked Democrat on the party affiliation thing. And to be honest, I normally vote Democrat (expect for Blago... he was the exception). I come from a conservative background and some people I know would scoff at a Christian Democrat. I don't agree with all the Democrat party lines but I can't vote for a party that likes to give tax breaks to the wealthy and leave me whimpering every time I look at the tax taken out of my paycheck. And they also like to cut spending to programs for the poor... Can't do it. I have this super over-arching sense of wanting to help everyone. Republicans don't like to do that.

Now despite my normal devotion to the Democrats, I'm utterly ashamed that they're sitting on Capitol Hill blaming the Republicans. Even my bff Obama is blaming the Republicans. What every Congressman needs to do is pull out a mirror and look at it before placing blame. And you know something, as Americans we're to blame too. We ALL elected these people into office and then let them sit around and refuse to act like grown ups.

When they sat around back in June bickering about the overwhelming debt, we all just sat around and grumbled. Then Obama put together the super committee and maybe we felt a little better. Maybe the thought of sweeping cuts to everything (especially the defense budget) would get them to work together. Neither party liked the idea of sequestration so they should have done everything to avoid it. But they didn't.

And this Occupy Wall Street movement, why did it take so long? Where was this in June when this whole debacle started? Why did it take us SO long to start voicing our discontent? Have we really become this complacent with our government?

You want to what I think? I think we've become lazy with our politics. We let the machine run too long and we've run ourselves into the ground. We have no one to blame here but ourselves. Beware, my friends, America is finished as the no. 1 superpower because we can't even agree on budget cuts. If we can't solve our own problems, why should we be trusted to go to other nations and solve theirs? We can't.

And I know this seems doom and gloom. Maybe it won't come to that... maybe we can figure it out. Maybe the Occupy Wall Street movement will bring sweeping changes to the government. But I doubt it. We are so stuck in this age of bureaucracy and bickering that the only thing that will change it is complete revolution.

So here's my clever solution to all this: Congress needs to be rehauled. Completely replaced. Replace them with a normal, civilian group and then EVERYONE has to go through intensive Mr. Rogers training. I'm going to start a curriculum for new Congressional members and Mr. Rogers will be at the core. Because he knew how to act like an adult and treat each other fairly. He understood that we may not agree on everything but we can embrace the differences and work together. If Mr. Rogers can get it right, then why can't the rest of us? It's so amazingly simple. Sure, he made a kids television show but if Congress can't act like adults, then it works out perfectly. So yes, my solution to this whole problem after completely voting out Congress is Mr. Rogers. Because he got it right and let's be honest, we could all take a page from Mr. Rogers once in a while.

So after everyone attends my Mr. Rogers seminar, we put them through a worst case scenario simulation. If they can't solve their differences and be like Mr. Rogers, then they're gone. Plain and simple. Imagine how many headaches we could save ourselves if Congress actually took some of Mr. Rogers' advice to heart and started treating each other like good neighbors. And yes, every morning would start with the House and Senate meeting together in a Joint sessions and singing the familiar tune of the opening song. And yes, I'm deadly serious about all this. Got any other ideas? Because nothing else we've tried has worked.