With the midterm elections finally here and voting taking place today I’m pinched into getting out the word as I see it… Oddly, I kind of wish this wasn’t my first post…

Living in Kentucky, the Senate race between incumbent Mitch McConnell and Alison Lundergan-Grimes is first up. In the last six years Senator McConnell has done everything he can to create gridlock in Washington. He along with Speaker Boehner have stalled progress on any legislation that forwards any democratic agenda, even when compromise is proposed.

Some facts showing change in major economic indicators since the last recession in 2009-2010:

1. Consumer confidence is at a highpoint, 94%, since the last recession, a rise of over 60%.
2. Unemployment has steadily decreased since the last recession from over 10% to  just above 6%.
3. 10 million more people have healthcare coverage now due to the Affordable Healthcare Act, but more importantly those getting coverage are in areas of economic need, showing that the premise of the act, to bring healthcare to more Americans that could not afford it has worked.
4. The Federal Deficit has been cut in half since 2009.

Many of the major indicators point to our economy improving, unemployment lowering, better access to healthcare for all, and a reduced deficit. Most of areas of improvement are opportunities for change due to the last recession….

Point being, while all of this is taking place, the leadership in the Senate is doing everything they can to do nothing more than gain control to reverse the positive trends in consumer confidence, unemployment, healthcare, and deficits.

Since the Supreme Court decision in 2010 to allow corporate entities unlimited campaign finance we now run the risk, as a nation, of allowing corporations to buy government that will propagate their interests ahead of the interests of the constituents that government is designed to serve.

Simply put, to change government and remove the gridlock, we have to change government. Thirty years of Mitch McConnell is an example. If half of that term was spent on productive ideas and legislation to aid Kentuckians in need, think where the state could be instead of where it is. Lagging in healthcare, education, jobs, technology, and battling drug abuse in the Appalachia’s, Kentucky has had years of opportunity to right a sinking ship, yet the same representatives with the same PAC’s, and same blind money flowing from the likes of the Koch brothers, keep the state relegated to a national laughingstock while the few, such as McConnell, continue to line their pockets and stave off positive change at all of the states expense.

Go ahead, tell em I’m wrong. I’d love to hear it.

Cheers \m/

Riley C.