Is it time for politicians to take an oath something like the Hippocratic Oath doctors take swearing to practice medicine honestly and ethically with no harm to their patients? I would suggest calling it the Hypocritical Oath mainly because of the low popularity of members of the U.S. Congress. Would it do any good? Yeah, right. I would guess that would be about a snowball’s chance of survival in Hades.

A New York Times/CBS poll conducted this year on Congress’ approval rating showed that only 12 percent of Americans approved of what members of Congress were doing. It’s obvious that Congress would be out of business if it ran a private business like a restaurant. What I see missing from the polls is the difference between what politicians promise they will do for us compared to what they really do to us.

For instance, in the modern version of the Hippocratic Oath, a medical professional swears: “If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, be respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter.” I believe it’s obvious that only 12 percent of Americans believe that such statement could apply to members of Congress. The only problem is that many voters don’t have a clue as to who they are voting for and it’s sad to state that an incumbent in office has a far better chance of being reelected rather than removed from office. This is especially sad because 88 percent of the voters don’t like members of Congress and yet they keep reelecting them to office which I also find hypocritical.

Maybe a politician should take The Hypocritical Oath of Politicians that would state that they would not place their hands in the wallets of those they represent. That goes along the lines of a joke I heard in Washington, D.C., where there are so many lawyers in our nation’s capital that they have their hands in each other’s pockets. Lawyers seem to always make up the largest group of members of Congress by occupation. Hmm? That doesn’t seem to be true in Augusta although Maine once again will probably have to pay back the federal government, this time for overpayments in the SNAP or food stamp program to the tune of more than $4 million. I have to guess that when it comes to political parties, party affiliations don’t matter when it comes to wasting government money.

We all know that politicians across the board all talk of the great things that they will do for us. Poverty in the United States is a great example and under Obama it has increased to 15 percent although he still blames Bush for that. Hunger was supposed to be solved as well and yet the use of food stamps (now called SNAP) has increased as well (around 49 million people). If the present tax cuts are not extended by January, somewhere between 3 to 10 million jobs will be lost. Mayor Bloomberg of New York City is now pressuring new mothers to breast feed their babies so I guess he lost his battle to eliminate large sodas or has some other fixation.

This year the two presidential candidates combined will spend over $1 billion and some estimates put that figure closer to $4 billion. PACs and SuperPACs along with special interest groups could spend another $4 to 8 billion and I haven’t even looked at congressional races as well as state and local races this fall. I have to call any political candidate a hypocrite that makes promises that costs the taxpayers billions while that candidate spends millions or even billions campaigning for office.

Finally I will end up in Windham where it appears four councilors are willing to stick the cost of a new sewer system upon every property owner in town just like the $440,000 cost of three new dump trucks although much of that cost will be in future budgets. Yep, the majority of those councilors ran on the premise of saving us money.

Lane Hiltunen, of Windham, believes when it comes to a new sewer system, he can only think of where the sun doesn’t shine.