The President takes far too much credit for what goes right in our country, and the opponents are quick to place far too much blame on things that go wrong. Basing one's vote on the latest, ever-changing, ever-manipulated statistics is precarious, at best. And common sense should not be thrown out with the partisan bath water.
One woman yelled at the news camera that she was voting for Obama because he gave her a phone. Another woman was complaining that her autistic sister's vote was going to be disenfranchised if her sister was required to show a voter's I.D. I think the woman was more worried that her autistic sister wasn't going to be able to cast her vote like she wanted her to vote. The autistic sister probably didn't even know who was running against the President. I saw an Occupy Now participant carrying around a sign twisting Kennedy's quote to say, Ask not what you can do for your country, but ask what your country can do for you. Is that selfish, lazy, narcissist attitude indicative of a bigger populace waiting for our government to meet their every need and want?
Can we all step back from this myopic view of life and look at the big picture here?
Our government is borrowing 30 cents for every dollar it spends-- how can any business survive that? Our government's deficit is now over $16,000,000,000,000. Do you know how big even one trillion is? And it's not even close to a billion. Take a look at the illustration on the following Web site:
http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html
It's hard to think that big, isn't it? And it scares me to death that most of us are sticking our heads in the sand when it comes to addressing this monstrous problem.
If Congress and the next elected President cannot work together and have the courage to make the tough decisions that it will take to solve the financial crisis facing us, it's going to hurt all of us when our government defaults and crashes financially, hurting not only every well-meanting social program including health care, but basic services we take for granted-- law enforcement, emergency responders, waste and water services, highway maintenance, and on we can go. Our government's financial debt is unsustainable unless some drastic measures are taken to start operating within its means. We'd all better learn to make do with what we have, because the government's modus operandi is mirroring the financial shape of many of its people.
No matter who elected in the White House and Congress after tomorrow, the road ahead is going to be painful.
That's a given.
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