How do we get out of here?

Proposition: That our Founding Fathers sought to fashion a government capable of accommodating free will with justice and human dignity.

To wit: Inherent in the American economic system are cycles of growth and decline. Those cycles are as much a part of our national economics as is the "law of supply and demand." What we seem to have trouble doing is figuring out how to help people during the periods of decline without making them dependent on government during periods of growth. Perhaps even more difficult is to figure out a method that keeps the same racial or ethnic groups from being the ones that suffer the most during the declines and gain the least during the growths.
     Any rational person who looks at our history over the past 75 years will note that the present financial crisis is not the fault of any one party or person. And even if it is, our Constitution reads, "We the People..." meaning that we all have a responsibility to help solve that crisis. We did not get into this crisis overnight and we are not going to be able to get out of it quickly, either.
    Deficit spending was adopted during the Great Depression as government attempted to bring the nation out of severe economic troubles. Since the 1950s we have continually relied on deficit spending until we have reached a point where almost half of every tax dollar is going to pay interest on the debt. Is the sole solution to cut all government programs so that we can devote more resources to paying down the debt? With unemployment in the 9 to 10% range, what kind of crisis will be fostered with we dump hundreds of thousands of government employees into the unemployment lines?
     The real test of our willingness to do what is right is not found during the moments of crisis. It is found in the growth times when real discipline is need to make choices that gradually reduce the size of debt and government.
     Government is like very pleasant drug. We like having things done for us, things handed us, and things built in our communities. We've become too dependent on those "fixes," and now we find that declining economic times make it hard for us to get our "fixes." But kicking that habit--going through rehab--is very difficult. Now we are faced with either going "cold turkey" or into some sort of treatment program that gradually weens us off our dependency. But, again, there's the rub. Do we have what it takes to keep cutting, gradually, when times get better? Can we resist when someone points out a new "need" that cries out for a new government program? Are we "heartless" to do so if there is a real need?
     The current crisis over the debt ceiling is being compounded by the fact that both parties have sworn off the so-called earmarks. How do legislative leaders get their party members to line-up behind a plan if the only incentive to do so is "its the right thing?" Ironic that one of the reasons we have a problem with the national debt is that it got that way in part due to earmarks, but now when we need the carrot of earmarks, all we have is a stick.
     To truly solve our problem, in the long term, without creating a bigger economic crisis, we need compromise and gradual reductions in government programs and gradual increases in revenue. Everyone must be willing to sacrifice, but the only ones currently being threatened with sacrifices are government employees, Social Security pensioners and the military. After 9/11 we were told to go out and spend money. Only members of the military and their families were asked to make true sacrifices. The entire nation should have been asked to pay a "war tax" to foot the bill for the "War on Global Terrorism." Instead the debt ceiling was raised again and again as we borrowed from the future.
     It is time for all of us to give a little for the good of all. If we freely give, it will be just, it will preserve human dignity. And our Founding Fathers would be proud.

Life is Bittersweet

     Last weekend was filled with as wide a series of emotional swings as I have experienced in some time.
     Pay Myers, a lady with whom I worked for many, many years died after a long and difficult struggle with cancer. Not only did we have to bare the news of her loss while out of town, we were unable to gather with other colleagues to mourn with them at her funeral.
     We got the call about her passing as we were driving to Pennsylvania to attend the wedding of Boss Cook's great niece. I always find great comfort in how families come together to celebrate such events. However, the joyful wedding was interlaced with pain of wittinessing Mom Miller's continuing mental decline.
     Then there is the news that friends who have been struggling to have a child after having previously lost one in the middle of a pregnancy, did give birth to healthy twin girls.
     The opening of the TV fictional medical series "Ben Casey" comes to mind: "Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity." 

I Wanna be Like Mike?

     Over the first 50 years of television, a commonly held belief has been that people who watch TV (and movies for that matter) tend to model their behaviour after the people they watch. Hence the strict censorship of TV in the 1950's to the 1980s. The normative behaviour theory has been the basis for forcing networks to impose some sort of ratings system to warn-off people from programming that might be considered offensive.
     From shows like "Daddy Knows Best" (even though his wife and kids usually did know best) to "The Cosby Show," Americans were presented with "ideal" middle class families. The implication being that we all ought to live like, act like, and aspire to the types of behaviour we were watching.
     Now cable/satellite TV gives us "Swamp People" and reality shows about Texas women and wild hogs in Texas and the people who hunt them.
     Is this the new normal?"