Every day in the United States, we lose another 1,500 veterans of World War II.
I'm not sure what is sadder, the loss of the Greatest Generation, or what we allow our representatives to do with the freedoms for which those veterans fought.
While we were sleeping, the "land of opportunity" was attacked by the "land of entitlements and handouts." In this battle, the enemy lies within each and every one of us. Until we stop looking at political parties and start looking at right versus wrong, our inherent nature to follow the path of least resistance will bring our republic, like our surviving WWII vets, to its twilight years.
Alexis de Tocqueville said, "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." He said this sometime in the 1840s. Today, this bribery is universally demonstrated in our unfunded liabilities in Social Security, Medicare, VA benefits, and every pork-filled bill that comes out of Congress.
Our insatiable appetite to have our country "provide for us" has had a crippling effect. It has caused us to mortgage the future of our children.
Common sense dictates that we can't rid ourselves of debt by accepting more debt. While this makes perfect sense in our personal lives, we have held our representatives to a completely different standard.
Most of us know that our federal government is more than $11 trillion in debt, nearly a third of which is owed to Japan and China. This year, we will add another staggering $1.4 trillion to that number. However, when we factor in our unfunded federal liabilities, we actually have a contingent debt of nearly $134 trillion. This equates to $435,702 for every man, woman and child in the United States.
Just paying the interest on our debt requires a sobering $26 billion per month, or $312 billion per year. Grasping these numbers is next to impossible, but perhaps this will make it a little more personal: The annual interest on our national debt is enough money to run the state of California for three years.
Digging ourselves out of this predicament is equally important to understanding how we created it. We arrived here by ignoring the sound economic fundamentals of our elder generation in a never-ending quest to "keep up with the Joneses."
We also suffered from the misguided belief that we can get something for nothing, when in reality somebody is paying the bill. In our quest, we permitted the election of leaders who were literally incapable of running their own checkbooks, let alone a country.
Do you remember the House banking scandal of the early 1990s? It was discovered when Congress revealed that more than 450 of its past and present members were overdrafting their House checking accounts. Apparently, the House bank did not charge fees for overdrafts and even provided overdraft protection.
For a moment, never mind that this fails to represent any bank that has ever taken care of you and me. Lenient rules enabled many members of Congress to leave their accounts overdrawn (i.e., free loan) for up to 39 months. One particularly important leader admitted that she did not pay attention to her House bank account. More specifically, she wrote 143 bad checks totaling $41,417. Her name is Barbara Boxer. Are these the actions of a fiscally responsible person?
It is time to seriously evaluate the direction in which our country is heading.
"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."
This famous call from JFK seems to have faded into history as nothing more than a quote. Don't you think it should be a way of life? For too long, too many of us have turned to our politicians for what they can provide, as opposed to what we can do to help.
The results have been devastating. We basically created two dominant types of representatives: those who like to spend, spend, spend, and those who like to spend.
Newton's first law of motion states that an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force. Our government's spending momentum can only be altered by one great force. "We the people" are that force. It is time to make the choices that will restore our great nation to the prominence we once enjoyed.
If you agree with me, I will see you from 4 to 6 p.m. April 15 at the Oceanside Pier Amphitheater.
Dr. GARY GONSALVES is a North County anesthesiologist and co-founder of Stop Taxing Us. Contact him at www.StopTaxingUs.com.
