Comedian Bill Maher recently stated, “I’ve been saying for about two years that what we need is a recession,” hoping President Trump is defeated in 2020. In a recession, millions of people may lose their jobs, homes and hope for the future. His declaration revealed a sense of manipulation and control that is inherent in politics today. Believing that hurting everyday Americans is an acceptable casualty to accomplish political objectives is morally wrong and at the core of the “swamp.”

Now we have the latest example of political behavior to try to defeat the other side rather than helping the American people, articles of impeachment against the president of the United States based on a very flawed process where a political party had already decided guilt long before there was any evidence of an actual crime. If you think that is a false statement, how can we otherwise explain spending $32 million of taxpayers’ money on the endless investigations of unfounded “Russian collusion,” before pushing “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress?”

For 34 years, I have helped individuals, families and business owners plan for financial goals. Many times, these plans have been disrupted by the latest policy out of Congress. Most recessions and the Great Depression were either caused or aggravated by bad policy enacted by leaders who did not understand the unintended consequences, or worse, did not care. This has been evidenced now with the impeachment inquiry followed by bringing up the vote on articles of impeachment.

America needs real leadership in the House that will take advantage of the strong economic conditions brought about by the Trump administration’s policies of cutting taxes and paring back excessive regulation to get our financial house in order. This includes eliminating the budget deficit, reducing the over $23 trillion debt and shoring up Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for future generations. It starts with a budget, yet Congress has not passed a real budget in many years. The Constitution declares the prime responsibility of the House of Representatives to control the purse strings of government, yet it is out of control in more ways than one.

In 2008, Financial Services Committee member and now Chairwoman Maxine Waters said regarding privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Six months later, those organizations were both in conservatorship (taken over by the federal government instead of formal bankruptcy as with a private corporation). The collapse of the biggest supporters of the mortgage industry was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Combined with mark-to-market accounting, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.

We may have avoided these disasters if policymakers understood the economic impact of their actions. The answer is to have less legislation and get back to the original rule of law, the Constitution. With commonsense policy, we can avoid economic disasters. Voters must elect people who have the knowledge to handle these issues and the wisdom to understand when less is much more.

Let’s get back to work for the American people and focus on improving infrastructure, lowering health care costs, cutting our deficit and debt, balancing budgets and maintaining economic growth.

###

Kathy Landing is a certified financial planning practitioner based in Charleston. Landing is a Republican candidate for Congress in South Carolina’s 1st District.