When I was a little boy, we were required to memorize Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Then we would have an assembly where all of the students and many of the parents would come to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday with plays and repeating the address.

His speech on Nov. 19, 1863, ended with “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish.”

Now seems that ideal is disappearing and has become, government of the politicians, by the politicians, for the politicians.

Go to the internet and Google “Congressional Perks.” You will wish you had those benefits from the company where you work.

That doesn’t tell all of the story. Congress routinely exempts themselves from laws like insider stock trading. They changed the law to make insider trading for Congress more complicated but didn’t remove it.

Congressional members can get rich in the stock market by knowing in advance what laws and regulations will affect the corporate world but you can’t.

If your brother-in-law works for a company that is about to announce a world changing advance, he can’t tell you or if he does, you can’t buy stock in the company or both of you likely will go to jail.

John White, Lexington