Money makes our country go 'round

What most Americans don't realize is that the Republicans and Democrats are really one in the same. The idea is to stay in power and the only way to do that is by raising huge sums of cash, which comes mainly from lobbyists and special interests such as big business.

This way the political strategists can keep up the vast division among Americans by stressing issues such as abortion and gun control that in the big picture are pretty insignificant in the overall scheme of things. In 1997 and 1998 over $300 million was spent by the banking industry to get congress to deregulate their industry, including $58 million for campaign contributions to individuals, $87 million in soft money to both the Republican and Democratic parties and $163 million to lobby firms. Our country has been in a meltdown for a while now because of this and some of the biggest news in the last week was whether President Obama should speak at a college. This country needs to wake up and see who is running this country because as far as I can tell it's certainly not the government or the citizens who elected the government to represent them.

Timothy Marting

Round Lake