(SBA) - I've never actually played 3-card Monte, but I've seen enough movies and television shows to know how it works. A guy stands behind a cardboard box or folding table, flips over three cards, shows you the winning card, and then starts moving them around so fast you can barely keep up. He talks the entire time, keeping your attention focused exactly where he wants it. You're convinced you've got it figured out. You know where the winning card is. Then you put your money down and somehow lose anyway.
The trick, of course, is that the game was never designed for you to win. The entire point is distraction. Keep people looking in one direction while something else is happening somewhere else.
Lately, I've found myself thinking that Washington, D.C., has turned governing into a giant national game of 3-card Monte.
Every day, politicians assure us that they are hard at work solving America's problems. They tell us they are fighting for us, protecting us, and making difficult decisions on our behalf. Yet when I look around, I sometimes wonder if what we're actually seeing is a carefully orchestrated game of distraction. While Americans are focused on whatever controversy is dominating the headlines this week, many of the real issues affecting our daily lives seem to remain stuck exactly where they were yesterday.
Think about it. How many times have you turned on the tv or opened your cell and found the entire country arguing over something that won't make groceries any cheaper, won't lower your electric bill, won't improve healthcare, and won't make it any easier for a young family to buy a home? One week it's a politician's comment. The next week it's a monument, a building name, a statue, a flag, a social media post, or some symbolic issue that suddenly becomes the biggest crisis facing America. The talking heads on cable news dedicate entire days to it. Social media explodes. Politicians issue statements. Experts are interviewed and now we’re all angry because the Washington Monument reflecting pool is the wrong color blue.
Then, almost magically, it disappears and is replaced by the next outrage.
Meanwhile, the price of hamburger keeps climbing.
The cost of filling my car isn't getting any cheaper.
Healthcare remains expensive and confusing, and co-pays and deductibles suck.
The national debt continues to grow, outpacing the nation's GDP.
And ordinary Americans are still trying to figure out how far their paycheck will stretch between now and the next payday.
That's the part that bothers me.
I don't believe most Americans are nearly as divided as tv would have us believe. Most people I talk to in Sergeant Bluff aren't spending their mornings obsessing over the latest political argument on social media. They're trying to run businesses, raise families, pay mortgages, keep farms operating, save for retirement, and maybe put a little money away for emergencies. They care about practical things because practical things affect their lives.
Washington, on the other hand, often seems obsessed with creating the next headline.
Sometimes I honestly wonder if many of our elected leaders don't know how to solve some of these bigger issues. Healthcare has been debated for decades. The national debt has been growing for decades. Government waste has been discussed for decades. Housing affordability, immigration, infrastructure, veterans' care, prescription drug costs—many of these issues have been around longer than some members of Congress.
If the solutions to our problems were easy, they probably would have happened by now.
But instead of admitting that some problems are incredibly difficult, politicians often seem to fall back on what they know works best, keeping people distracted and divided.
If Americans are arguing with each other over Trump’s ballroom, they aren't paying as much attention to what government is doing.
If people are fighting over cultural issues, they aren't asking as many questions about spending.
If voters are angry at each other, they're less likely to notice that very little governing is being done in Washington, regardless of which party happens to be in charge.
And honestly, both parties play this game. Republicans do it, and Democrats do it.
The media happily participates in this game because outrage attracts viewers, clicks, and advertising dollars.
The result is a political system that increasingly resembles professional wrestling.
Everyone has a role to play. Everyone has a villain to attack. Everyone has an audience to entertain.
But unlike professional wrestling, the consequences affect real people.
One area where this becomes especially frustrating is government spending. Most Americans understand that government costs money. We need roads. We need national defense. We need air traffic controllers, border security, veterans' services, and countless other programs. Nobody seriously believes the federal government should operate for free.
What people struggle with is the waste. A good example. Reuters reported that over 10 years, $1.3 million dollars in taxpayer money was shelled out (sorry for the pun) to study shrimp on a treadmill. Yes, you read that right, shrimp on a treadmill. Our government wanted to know how fast our shrimp can run from us.
Year after year, stories like this emerge about questionable spending decisions. Wacky research funding. Expensive consulting contracts. Luxury office renovations. Equipment that nobody requested. Programs that continue long after they've stopped serving a useful purpose. At least the shrimp are getting a good cardio workout.
Then there's the Pentagon and the Department of Defense (WAR).
Now before anybody starts sending angry letters, let me say this, I absolutely support a strong military. We live in a dangerous world, and national defense matters.
But supporting the military doesn't mean we shouldn't ask questions about how money is spent.
For years, critics have talked about the government's "use it or lose it" budgeting mentality. The concept is simple. If an agency doesn't spend all the money allocated to it, there's concern that Congress might reduce next year's budget. So what happens? Departments often rush to spend remaining funds before the budget year ends.
Think about how absurd that sounds in the real world.
Imagine telling your spouse, "Honey, we've got $5,000 left in our savings account. We better spend it all before New Year's or my boss might think we don't need as much income next year."
You'd probably get hit with a remote.
Yet some version of that thinking has existed in government for decades.
Taxpayers notice these things.
They notice because they don't have the luxury of spending money simply because it's available. Most families stretch every dollar. Small business owners certainly do. Farmers do. Retirees do. The government should be expected to do the same.
Then there's the issue that seems to unite Americans regardless of political affiliation, politicians getting rich.
This is where people start raising eyebrows.
A lot of Americans look at Washington and ask a pretty simple question.
How does somebody arrive in politics with relatively little money and leave with millions?
Now, to be fair, there are legitimate ways to build wealth. Book deals. Speaking engagements. Investments. Previous business success. Those things happen.
But let's not pretend the optics look great.
Members of Congress often have access to information that ordinary investors don't. They sit in briefings. They hear economic forecasts. They learn about regulations and government actions before the rest of us.
Even when everything is technically legal, many Americans feel like the deck is stacked.
Personally, I think members of Congress should be prohibited from trading individual stocks while serving in office. In fact, I think the same argument can be made for many high-level government positions across all three branches.
Public service shouldn't be a pathway to personal enrichment.
It should be service.
Period.
If judges are expected to avoid conflicts of interest and military officers face strict ethics rules, why should lawmakers operate under different standards?
The appearance of impropriety is almost as damaging as actual impropriety because it destroys trust.
And trust is something Washington is running dangerously low on these days.
The same goes for term limits.
I know there are arguments on both sides. Experience matters. Institutional knowledge matters.
But so does fresh thinking.
The Founding Fathers never envisioned a permanent political class. Yet today we have elected officials who have spent so much time in Washington that they barely remember life outside the Beltway.
Some have been in office longer than many voters have been alive.
At some point, government stops being a temporary public service and starts becoming a career preservation program.
The Supreme Court deserves a similar conversation. Lifetime appointments may have made perfect sense in the late 1700s. People didn't routinely live into their eighties and nineties back then. Today, a justice can influence American law for three or four decades.
That's an enormous amount of power concentrated in the hands of a few individuals.
Whether term limits are the answer or not, the conversation itself is worth having.
What isn't healthy is pretending our institutions can't be improved.
Because they can.
And they should.
What frustrates me most is that I don't think Americans are asking for miracles. Most people aren't demanding perfection. They simply want government to function with the same level of common sense they apply in their own lives.
They want honesty.
They want accountability.
They want transparency.
They want leaders who spend more time solving problems than creating distractions.
Most Americans, whether they vote Republican, Democrat, Independent, or don't vote at all, want many of the same things. Safe communities. Affordable healthcare. Good schools. Reliable jobs. A secure retirement. A strong military. Fair laws. Responsible spending.
Those aren't radical goals.
They're pretty reasonable.
Yet somehow those basic concerns often get buried beneath another avalanche of political theater.
And that's why the 3-card Monte comparison keeps coming back to me.
While we're watching the cards move around the table, we're supposed to be amazed by the show. We're supposed to focus on whichever controversy is being highlighted today. We're supposed to pick a side, get angry, and argue with our neighbors.
But maybe the smarter move is to stop staring at the cards for a moment.
Maybe we should start watching the dealer instead.
Because eventually every 3-card Monte game falls apart the same way. People begin to realize what's happening. They recognize the distraction. They understand the trick.
And once enough people stop watching the cards and start paying attention to the hands moving them around, the game becomes a whole lot harder to play.
