Printer-friendly version
By Dave Patterson, Ramona
This is a wakeup call for everyone that assumes that our jobs and pensions are secure, and that we will be taken care of in our elder years. The fact is that our leadership has bankrupted the nation and we are mostly to blame because of our apathy.
Starting in 1990 I was waving the red flag regarding the National Debt, then $2,000 per capita. No one was worried because it was such a small percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), and besides Ronald Reagan had said, “Deficits don’t matter.”
The crooks and liars gave the green light to the banks and investment firms that proceeded to gamble our wealth and lose it. Now the debt is almost as large as the debt accumulated after WWII, and we have a government that is so big no one wants to deal with it. Our politicians have failed us and now they are saying that Social Security is on the chopping block. Like our other pensions, they have spent it all into oblivion.
The chance that our leaders will get with the program and cut our military spending, now twice as large as all the other nations put together, is zero because the military budget gives jobs to people that would otherwise be unemployed. Or to define this more realistically, the government is in the jobs business big time, and making sure that the businesses make a substantial profit as well. The other reason they won’t touch military spending is because the contractors make sure that our leadership is re-elected with what was our tax money, a crime in any other civilized society.
But now the contractors and politicians have eroded the tax base and are serving up Medicare and Social Security as payment against the ultimate corruption of our system, with crooks and liars in control. Again, we are culpable because we let them do this, and now we will pay dearly. That is unless we wake up and demand that tax loopholes are closed and military spending is reduced significantly. We need to give up some of our so-called security, and dismantle the TSA and NSA, made so powerful since 9-11. Surrender some of Medicare but none of Social Security, keeping the third rail alive by deposing any politician that dares to touch one dollar of the Social Security trust fund or payout.
People need to get angry about this and start calling the talk radio shows, no longer content to let the talking heads dictate what we should think. The crooks and liars will take your last meal to keep themselves in power and rich, and it’s up to us to stop them.
The opinions in this editorial reflect the views of its author and do not necessarily reflect the views of East County Magazine. To submit an editorial for consideration, contact editor@eastcountymagazine.org
Recent comments