There is another problem that I rank number three. My view on that has not changed either. It’s our citizen’s loss of confidence in their leadership. For a long time now, there has been a growing feeling that no one in Washington is to be believed-that they’re in the game mainly to protect their own political self-interest.

I believe that President Obama saw that, and very effectively tapped into that cynicism during his presidential campaign. But now, event though he is still enjoying honeymoon poll numbers, I believe that if he continues his current course, he will not only not change Washington, he will exacerbate the worst features of Washington.

A word or two of unsolicited advice for the president:

If you want to help change people’s cynical view of their leadership, let me suggest a few things NOT to do:

• Don’t look the American people in the eye and say that your spending proposals do not contain pork or earmarks. Even your supporters are having a hard time keeping a straight face.
• Don’t say that your administration is going to be the epitome of transparency and then go back on your promise to put important legislation on the internet and give citizens a change to examine it before you sign it.
• Don’t say you are going to call for shared sacrifice, then tell 95% of the people you are going to send them a check, and suggest that you are showing courage by standing up to the other 5%.
• Don’t claim that you are going to inform entitlements by creating more of them as you have proposed.
• Don’t tell us the world is coming to an end in order to get your stimulus package passed, then immediately after that have your people say that we may be coming out of the recession by the end of the year. We might conclude that you’re toying with our emotions for improper purposes. A gentleman does not do that.
• Don’t rail against lobbyists (some of your biggest supporters), promise never to hire them, and then proceed to hire them on a regular basis. Again, your standards are high, you just don’t bother to follow them. It is much better not to make promises you know you are not going to keep in the first place.
• Mr President, don’t promise to go thru the budget line by line to eliminate wasteful and unnecessary spending in this time of economic distress and then sign a budget that contains 8500 earmarks including hundreds of millions of dollars for beaver control and pig manure management.
• Next, don’t ever, ever again sign an almost trillion dollar pork-laden stimulus bill, then hold a fiscal responsibility summit, then sign a big-budget increase that is even giving several democrats heartburn. People might think you are not serious about the fiscal responsibility part.
• Finally, don’t pretend that you can get enough revenue to pay for all this by raising taxes on two or three percent of Americans. You know you can’t. and we know you know you can’t. why not admit that these tax increases are political decisions, not economic ones?

Just a few friendly suggestions, Mr. President, for the sake of your own credibility and for those who want to believe in the things that their leaders say. They are willing to operate on the basis of faith over experience for a while. But they are not fools.