I am encouraged. Imagine it; Republican Gov. Christie winning a landslide reelection in a blue state. What does this tell us about the common sense of both conservative and liberal voters? We all can add and most of us know that our financial house must be in order or else something bad is going to happen.
Consider the budget fights in Washington and the closing of government for a couple of weeks. That would not have happened had the conservatives not been worried sick about our unconscionable deficit spending; they did not handle it right, but their concerns were well placed.
We cannot pretend that we can spend like there is no tomorrow when we read the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s long-term projections of Medicare’s $100 trillion shortfall, and $222 trillion shortfall when we add in Social Security, Medicaid, ObamaCare, debt service, etc. We cannot spend like there is no tomorrow when we have every expectation that tomorrow will come.
When there is a problem, prudent people face it, they don’t do as Washington is doing right now. Take the food-stamp program as an example. Our federal government is not satisfied with the level of handouts and has been running an ad campaign to get more people to sign up for stamps. As a result, according to a New York Times article by Catherine Rampell Nov. 1, the “Food stamp caseloads have swollen in the last few years; in fiscal year 2007, before the recession began, there were about 26 million people receiving food stamps. As of this past July… there were nearly 48 million.”
The tragedy of our current folly is not only that we are saddling future generations with our gambling debts, but we are depriving our nation of its opportunity for ongoing greatness. Broke nations don’t put men on the moon; don’t explore Mars; don’t place Hubble and Kepler telescopes in orbit; don’t build state-of-the-art super highway systems, don’t help fund research of all kinds; don’t build world-class universities, etc.
In our economic system, the least prosperous thrive far more than most of the rest of the world. As anybody who travels the globe knows, our least prosperous are relatively well off by comparison.
And let’s not forget America’s unparalleled industrial strength which has enabled us to thrive like our parents and grandparents had no capacity to even imagine. Patricia’s grandfather walked for months next to the family’s oxcart filled with all of their worldly possessions from Tennessee to Louisiana.
If someone told him that his granddaughter would have breakfast in Tennessee and lunch in Louisiana, how do you think his mind could have processed that unimaginable feat? Or can you imagine seeing his face if you pulled a cell phone out of your pocket and called a friend in England, not only being able to speak to him, but see him live! Corporations have to make healthy profits in order to invest in the creation of this stuff. Without the profits, improvements decline, and research and development jobs go away.
Gov. Christie’s landslide, ushered in by us citizens with common sense, offers hope that America’s greatness will continue.
From the Bible: If any of you lack wisdom, you should pray to God, who will give it to you; because God gives generously and graciously to all. James 1:5 (GNT)
Avalon – Eighty percent of working-age Americans have jobs, and the average after-tax income is up almost $4,000 since before the pandemic, significantly outpacing inflation.
