Every four years the American people are forced to endure yet another round of each political party nominating its new "savior" and only hope for the future of the country. Each of these nominees travels across the country touting their accomplishments and rationalizing away their failures. Each of them talks about how, if given the chance, they will change Washington so that it is more open to the "regular folks" just like you and I. And then every four years we elect the lesser of two evils and grit our teeth while this country's problems keep getting worse and nothing changes.
I have had enough. The politicians are purposefully misleading the American people by making the election about who is going to bring about the most change, or who has stood up to the establishment more. Who F*$%ing cares. If you haven't noticed we are in some pretty serious trouble. The problem is that no elected officials are willing to do anything about the problems we face, because it might mean not getting re-elected during the next cycle. It is much easier to treat the symptoms than to tackle the problem itself. Meanwhile we the people are left with the choices of Bad and Worse instead of the choices that might actually fix the problems.
So let's be more specific. Social Security is running out of money. According to the Washington Post today, Social Security is expected to run a $6.7 trillion deficit over the next 75 years. My generation (I'm 23) will be forced to pay overwhelming taxes in order to fund the retirement monies that have been promised to our parents and grandparents. I'm not pretending to know the solution- It's a complex issue and I'm rather tired at the moment. But I do know the solution isn't to sit back and say that Social Security won't run out of money for at least ten years so we don't need to fix it yet (see US Congress). Ridiculous. I would gladly pay a little extra in taxes now to ensure that the country won't be bankrupt in 20 years.
What's more, the state of our nation's health care system should be a threat to our national security. Also in the Post, the costs and payouts for Medicare will exceed the dedicated money by $34.1 trillion over the next 75 years. This is unacceptable. Furthermore, there can be no explanation for the fact that in the world's most prosperous and powerful nation the least fortunate among us, especially children, have to make a choice between food and health care. Surely we can cut spending from other programs (i.e. $12 million a day in Iraq) to feed our sick and poor. But staying out of Middle Eastern countries would mean higher gas prices; and well-to-do Americans can't have that. Cuts from any of the entitlement programs would surely mean the ousting of the elected official who finally stood up for what was necessary, and that is why we see no action.
Breaking news: The national deficit is threatening to climb above $1 trillion. Need I say more?
Obviously the Government cannot keep spending on the level that it is. Cuts need to be made. Taxes will almost certainly have to be raised. The American people need elected representatives who will stand up and give them the facts as they are. The national debate needs to swing from which classes of people get tax cuts, to which Federal Programs need to get cut.
Conveniently enough, I have some suggestions. Farm subsidies, welfare payments, most forms of unemployment, THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT BUDGET, Ethanol payments, American auto-maker subsidies and pork-barrel legislation. I'm sure I can think of more, but that should be a good start.
The fact of the matter is that soon Americans are going to have to make some tough choices. We will have to sacrifice in order to ensure a decent quality of life for our children and children's children. We need politicians who understand this and aren't afraid to confront the tough issues. Unfortunately I've seen very few of those...
7 comments:
I do agree, but cutting those you mentioned are catastrophic! It will send thousands of people directly to the 'under-class' level. 'Under-class' destabilizes the society and unless the transition isn't very well thought-of; no body would know what can come out of the chaos!
It's hard to tell how the 21st century is going to handle the transition. I'm tempted to compare the situation to the Industrial Revolution. In that transition, big shift in the means of production caused a lot of misery to a lot of people. It would be interesting to see how this is going to be handled this time.
You are absolutely right, sacrifice is necessasary. We have to realize that few people in the world live the 'americanized' or 'westernized' lifestyle of extravagance, and it is not sustainable.
Unfortunately, we have all sacrificed too much already in the name of 'security' and 'safety' during the reign of the Bush Administration. Freedom, civil liberties, constitutional rights? Take a look at the Military Commissions Act (which is unfortunately, only one among many such acts). The problem we now face, is that in our efforts to protect ourselves from the 'terrorists,' we have become just as, if not more, dangerous in our apathetic allowance (and often approval) of outright violations to our constitution and ideals.
Lets hope the 'change' in Washington politics reverses this trend before inertia carries us over the impending edge.
Esfan- I disagree that it would be catastrophic. Yes it would mean a change in lifestyle for many people, but many people live beyond their means already. Unfortunately we can't legislate fiscal responsibility, but we can stop giving away free money to promote it.
Mike- I completely agree. We have given up too many civil liberties in the name of security, and unfortunately I don't see us getting them back. I am very familiar with the MCA and wish it had never been passed. Here's a famous quote from Ben Franklin:
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"
People think that since they can't see the effects of giving up these liberties that it must not be that big of a deal. I hope the day never comes when they are proven wrong, but fear that we are 1, maybe 2 terrorist attacks away from realizing that.
True - great quote. Heres another good one by Naomi Wolf:
"We take our American liberty for granted the way we take our natural resources for granted, seeing both, rather casually, as being magically self-replenishing. We have not noticed how vulnerable either resource is until very late in the game, when systems start to falter. We have been slow to learn that liberty, like nature, demands a relationship with us for it to continue to sustain us."
(taken from "The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot").
I recently read that the Supreme Court did rule to allow 'enemy combantants' held under the Military Commissions Act to incite Habeas Corpus, which is a step in the right direction - but unfortunately the MCA is only one problem among many, and you are right - once liberties and freedoms are taken away, they are very hard to regain.
A change in life style is not as easy! especially now. See how difficult it is for a younger person to change career. Now consider a 50 year old GM worker with no future. I guess you would agree that basically re-training thousands of middle-aged workers is pretty much impossible? Cutting the agricultural subsidization would mean that much of the European and American farming industry will go bankrupt. All of these will mean a lot of under-class. I'm not saying GM should be bailed out or agricultural subsidization shouldn't be cut but I think it would be a very difficult thing and as you say: it takes a lot of guts and sacrifice.
Society, especially the western society is a scary thing. It's like the tidy German train system. All the trains run on time. something changes, and a new station opens in Hamburg. A bunch of rookies running things. Bound to be mistakes. Kids play on the tracks and get electrocuted, and before you know it, trains are backed up all the way to Berlin and you got a bunch of angry Germans with nowhere to go. And we all know that ain't good for the Jews…
The Defense Budget would have the greatest impact. We need to slash costs there and raise taxes on the upper-upper class.
Obama needs to return to the Clinton days at worst and I think he can do better, because our situation - more dire.
You think Americans are willing to sacrifice? It would be a good post to delve deeper into that...
Mike-Yes the Supreme Court did rule that, and Obama has committed his administration toa no-torture policy, so hopefully he does better
Esfan-I agree, A change of lifestyle would be very difficult for people to make, but it looks like it is going to be necessary. That is one of the bad parts of capitalism
Conartist- That would be an interesting topic, just difficult to prove one way or the other. My guess is no.
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