The American Dream

It appears that the nation is in for some drastic government action in order to "save the economy." No American can doubt that the economy is experiencing the greatest recession since World War Two. I believe this crisis will be remembered as our generation's "great depression." There will not be bread lines or Hoovervilles because of the social safety net. Yet I do hope that this will awaken in all Americans, including the politicians of both parties, the notion that there is no free ride.
President-elect Obama and Congress have a once-in-a-century chance to fix our endemic problems. Programs from Social Security to healthcare to subsidy-driven industry that are mortgaging our children's and grandchildren's futures need to be reviewed and solved. For more than 30 years, our citizens have both collectively and individually lived far beyond our economic circumstances. President Hoover promised a chicken for every pot and our modern-day politicians promise a 72-inch flat screen in every home. Even war against an implacable foe like Iraq demands no blood, sweat, and tears from the general public. We are told, instead, to spend our way out of the problem.
Our elected officials set up false dichotomies between "Main Street" and "Wall Street", suggesting there is a difference. While demonizing the institutions that created the financial ruin, our Congress and President then vote hundreds of billions of dollars to save those very institutions from their sins without demanding any accountability regarding how those funds are used. Under our current system of free enterprise, a bank, a brokerage house or a car company can screws up and be allowed to stay in business by government infusion of money. This money, our money, is given to these large institutions, usually with no strings, under the auspices of saving the jobs of working men and women. Conversely, the small business owner quickly disappears because there is no safety net for him.
Most Americans work for small businesses or, more and more frequently now, simply as independent contractors with no benefits and are required to pay the full percentage of the payroll tax for Social Security and Medicare. They do not have access to the army of lobbyists that banks, brokerage houses and car companies do. What the government has done to date during this crisis is borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars from China and other nations to bail out these big "American companies" and given the bill to future generations of our citizens.
I do not know whether this is the right thing to do or not do. Only time will tell. I do know that if Obama, Pelosi, and Reid continue on the same path as every U.S. administration and Congress has for the past thirty years, then we are doomed to becoming a third rate power. The status quo is not acceptable. We, the American people, must be willing to sacrifice some materialistic things today for the good and future of our nation. It is time for a reckoning for all of us, and it is incumbent upon the Congress to take the lead on these changes. Let's hope the bills they present will be carefully crafted to address the immediate urgent problems we face and not be packed with million of dollars of pet projects for their districts. We need to take a realistic assessment of what we can afford to buy both as a nation and as individuals.