Election deadline
The deadline for letters to the editor related to the May 4 election is at noon Monday, April 26. No election-related letters will be published after Friday, April 30.
President (Barack) Obama has been frantically seeking support for the health care bill, trying to get congressional closure to changes that have been on the table for months now.
One of the rallying cries I hear is that congressmen need to have “courage” to support changes that will impact Americans now and for generations to follow.
To me, courage would be admitting that the country is heading toward complete bankruptcy if we continue on the current “overspending” track.
Social Security is a well-known mess, and has many of us wondering what, if anything, we’ll see from this fund in our own retirements.
Medicare and Medicaid are also fiscal disasters, and the demographics have them looking even worse as time passes and we all grow older. Most states are scrambling to balance their budgets, or are looking for federal handouts simply to get through another tough year. Counties and cities are no better off.
After courage admits that the current pathway is unsustainable, then courage would propose concrete steps to reverse the trend, and move forward in a truly positive direction.
Instead of telling virtually everyone we can all have everything for nothing, how about telling us that our medical care will continue to cost more as we live longer, live unhealthy lifestyles, and insist on the best care medicine has to offer, regardless of the cost (which we don’t usually know, anyway).
Tell us that we will have to work much longer than age 65 to access Social Security. Tell us that more, not fewer, will have to pay things like federal income taxes. After all, we should all be stakeholders to some extent.
Courage must tell us to expect less, not more, from our government in the years ahead. Transition to a “pay as we go” model, one which would have largely spared us from the “Great Recession,” had most of us followed that maxim in our personal lives.
Stop telling us everything we want is a “right,” guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Promote more personal responsibility and accountability, and less dependence on the federal government.
Tragically, I expect very few (if any) elected representatives to actually be courageous. And, even more tragically, I expect our future will be much worse than it needs to be because of the lack of real courage.
Dave Lippert
West Chester Twp.