Instead Of Bickering, Americans Should Galvanize Together To Hold Both Parties Accountable To All Of Us

By Jack Kelly

After a lot of drama and hand-wringing, President Trump finally signed the $900 billion pandemic relief package Sunday night. Trump held-up the implementation of the relief program by demanding $2,000 checks sent to families instead of $600, but relented with his signature and acquiesced to the original $600. Trump, however, requested Congress to go back to the drawing board and work towards a separate bill which would "increase payments to individuals from $600 to $2,000."

By signing off on the bill, he averted a government shutdown. Trump said, "I am signing this bill to restore unemployment benefits, stop evictions, provide rental assistance, add money for PPP, return our airline workers back to work, add substantially more money for vaccine distribution, and much more."  

Trump said that he signed the piece of legislature along with “a strong message that makes clear to Congress that wasteful items need to be removed.” Trump added, “I will send back to Congress a redlined version, item by item, accompanied by the formal rescission request to Congress insisting that those funds be removed from the bill.” He claimed that the Republican-controlled Senate would “start the process for a vote that increases checks to $2,000, also repeal Section 230 and start “an investigation into voter fraud.”

Section 230 grants social media companies certain immunities from lawsuits over alleged libelous and other forms of content. The law has long been a target for the president as he felt the social media companies are aligned against him. Trump also called for Congress to “get rid of the ‘pork’,” referring to money spent on state politician’s pet projects.

As Americans, we should take a step back from our political tribalism and actually look at what's inside the total $2.3 trillion federal budget. This is the bigger picture. Sure, Trump wants to fight his Don Quixote battle to undo the Biden victory. It was his right to explore any and all legal issues to ensure that there wasn’t fraud and corruption. We’d want Biden to have the same rights if he loses running for a second term. Trump also firmly believes that the social media giants such as Twitter and Facebook “rigged” their algos against him as they’ve pivoted towards taking a political stand instead of being merely an unbiased platform. It's worth exploring this matter further as it could be Trump today and Kamala Harris in four years.

Both Democrats and Republicans should be leery of all the staggering amounts of money that's being sent to other countries instead of being used to help Americans in need. 

Why should multi billions of dollars go to foreign nations when we have record levels of poverty, food insecurity and millions of people out of work? Does our defense budget need so much funding? Should we be the police department for the world with army bases around the globe? I’m not saying if this is right or wrong. I am saying that we should all pay attention and have a voice over where our hard earned money, that we’re forced to pay taxes on, is spent wisely. 

Instead of bickering with each other, we should galvanize together to hold both parties accountable to us, the people. It's our country, not the politicians’ personal fiefdoms.