Okay America, it's time for a choice.
Finally, a national paper has found the fortitude to publish a story about the real economic disaster this country is facing if we continue "on course." For those who had the opportunity to read USA Today on November 14, the front page carried a story that is far overdue but truthfully outlines the pending doom we Americans face. We now have a clear choice: an ever-increasing American quality of life, or sliding down a slippery slope of major economic disaster. Unfortunately, we face hard times in our future with either path.
Our spending is so out of control that we just might have passed a point where the rate of increase of interest may exceed our ability to stop an out-of-control deficit. As this article points out, by 2010 the interest alone will be the same amount as our DoD budget, $561 billion. The blame for this economic disaster is squarely on the shoulders of the cut-and-spend mentality that we have seen demonstrated on the floors of our Congress. Given the track record of the Bush administration, we will stay the course.
My prediction is that the Bush administration will make noise that Congress needs to tighten their belts, Congress will make noise about what health benefits should get cut, like Medicare or drug benefits. There will still be a push to increase tax cuts by Senator Frist. The wealthiest Americans will continue to reap tax benefits while the poverty rate will increase dramatically. The diminishing middle class will have the tax burden placed squarely on their shoulders. My guess is that property taxes will climb rapidly. Sales tax will outpace inflation. The states will have federal dollars cut, which will result in an increase in state income tax. The poor get poorer so that the very wealthy can continue to get wealthier.
The handoff in 2008 will stifle the next administration regardless of who wins. Therefore if we don't vote the representatives who supported this fiasco out in 2006 and start making the changes, we all lose. We will retire later, the quality of life we enjoyed will no longer be available to our children, and the middle class will rapidly disappear. Our best jobs will continue to be exported overseas so that our corporations can be more profitable. Our kids will work longer working lives and their work day will be longer in order to make ends meet, resulting in their children see less and less of nurturing parents.
Our economy is in meltdown and we need to be aggressive about fixing it, now. Only if we change the makeup of Congress in 2006 do we have a chance to stop the persistent agenda of blissful ignorance the executive branch promotes. We have a duty to perform and this is a call to arms to change the course. It is our responsibility to be the agent of change.
In my district, Arizona CD 8, Jim Kolbe has supported this president for five years on economic issues. He is the chair of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs, and just recently requested a quarter billion dollar funding effort for Iraq which was cut back to $61 million. The 2003 Iraqi relief bill still has billions available that hasn't been spent. I wondered who was going to skim the cream from that funding. You would also think that someone on the Congressional Economic Leadership Institute would be aware of these issues, and as Kolbe is the Co-chair, he has no excuse for letting our country slip into a predicament that now jeopardizes our democracy.
Kolbe's republican opponent, Randy Graf, is no better. After the House passed the transportation bill, which Kolbe vote for, Graf wasted no time in noting that if Alaska was going to get hundreds of millions of dollars for bridges to "nowhere" then we southern Arizonans were being shortchanged. He promptly declared that he would secure a spot on the Transportation Committee so that we in Arizona would get our share of pork. In other words, let's just continue with irresponsible spending. Last Friday, President Bush called those who voted to support military action in early 2003 and who now opposed the occupation in Iraq irresponsible. What will we call our government if we Americans continue to let special interests drive us to ruin?
The answer to stopping the insanity is very simple: stop the pork spending, get out of Iraq, require the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes, commit to keeping our best jobs in America, commit to fair trade versus free trade, and start producing what we Americans do best, ingenuity.
Wake up America; it's time for a change.