We have citizens massacred in their communities, but we can't have sensible gun laws because the gun industry profits might be strained if they can't sell weapons to those who would do harm to the rest of us.
We broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States in the month of June and are currently in the 329th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, but we can't seriously address global warming because the oil and coal corporations continue to feign denial.
We have witnessed an historic economic collapse due in large measure to the shenanigans of the financial industry, but we can't have proper oversight and reasonable legislation to prevent another collapse from happening because the financial industry's feelings would be hurt.
We have a health care crisis in America, but we can't have progressive universal health coverage for all Americans because it might cramp the luxurious lifestyle of insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
We have millions of undocumented workers in this country, but we can't have compassionate immigration reform because the Prison–Industrial complex and companies profiting from workers living in the shadows want to maintain the status quo.
We are spending more on national defense than the rest of the world combined, but we can't trim the defense budget because the Military-Industrial complex doesn't want to do without their favorite toys.
We have legislation currently languishing in Congress that would immediatly provide jobs for millions of Americans while addressing our infrastructure needs, but we can't get the legislation passed because we have a Republican Congress that has adopted the cynical political strategy of obstruction and the purposeful destruction of the economy designed around the sinister notion of making a democratically elected president of the United States a one-term president.
Just this past week the Senate voted on S. 3364, a bill designed to provide incentives for businesses to bring jobs back to America by replacing an existing tax-deduction for outsourcing jobs abroad with a new tax-deduction for insourcing jobs from abroad. But Senate Republicans blocked the bill with a filibuster because corporations want to continue receiving tax-write-offs for shipping jobs overseas.
This is why we can't have nice things. It's not that we don't have viable solutions to address the challenges and problems that we face. It is the tyrannical corporate monied interests and political self-interest that is preventing us from moving forward.