The Invisible Elephant

I just listened to the Democratic debate in Iowa. While I like the candidates, they, just like their Republican counterparts, and the journalists questioning them, are all ignoring the mammoth invisible elephant. Sure, we want a lot of things, but how are we going to pay for them? We can't pay for what we are doing now! We have become the world's largest debtor nation, our excesse being financed by foreigners. Thirty years ago we were told that the federal debt and deficit spending didn't really matter because we "owed it to ourselves."

That has long since ceased to be true. We are mortgaging our present and our future and risking our way of life by spending beyond our means, and far beyond our willingness to actually pay for it. I think too many Americans think Uncle Sam has deep pockets lined with excess cash he can just throw at anything we decide we want. Wake up! He not only doesn't have cash in those pockets, the only way he gets any is from our taxes or borrowing from China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and the like. We are like children who don't see why our parents can't buy everything we ask for. We don't see the consequences of our unwillingness to pay our own way.

Our federal government is like a family spending it's way into bankruptcy, paying the mininum due on a raft of credit cards, juggling the debt and spending more and more, but no one in the family is willing to cough up something to pay down the principal, or refuse to spend more. And the Republican "religion" that taxes should be cut is crazy. Like the family saying, well, we have all this debt, but let's take a salary cut and make it even harder to pay our bills. (Yes, I know, they think it will stimulate the economy and bring in more taxes, but where's the proof? Faith is not enough.)

The current financial industry and housing market meltdown is part of the same foolish psychology -- unregulated companies loan too much money to people who can't pay it back. Greed is great until they start to feel the pinch - and then ask Uncle Sam to help out. Who is more foolish? The lenders? The people who spend more than they can pay? Our government doing the same? It's a country and society-wide illness. We all need a 12-step program for overspenders!

There are many deserving programs that we would like to have, but it's time for an across the board evaluation of what the basic needs are, not the extras we would like to have. It's time to figure out how we are going to really pay for the things that matter most and admit to ourselves we can't have it all.

And let's stop pretending "welfare" is a bad word if the government is going to hand out corporate welfare in the billions. Go back to some reasonable regulation and make corporations behave in a fiscally responsible manner so we don't have to bail them out -- with Chinese dollars.

Are any of the candidates on either side courageous enough to tell the truth about this? Or are they all just going to keep promising more and more that we can't pay for?