Election Perspective

The basic difference between political philosophies no longer seems to be support for either the Democratic or the Republican party platform, but concern about the intensity of the role of government in both making spending decisions and controlling individuals/ communities/ states with those decisions. It appears to be generational whether a person wants the government to pay for the plethora of entitlement programs or sees the role of government as the mechanism to maintain the infrastructure, while staying out of the governance on a local level.

People who do not want to raise taxes conversely want "the government" to pay for the entitlements that make the USA so attractive to the unemployed, as well as the unemployable. If I am an individual who wants what everyone else has, but I have lived my life as a welfare recipient, rather than as a contributing financial partner in my lifestyle, I expect that the government will provide me with assistance vis a vis my welfare check, my food stamps, my subsidized housing, my medical care -- but I may not connect these "free" services to the fact that they are provided by tax revenue, not money picked off the money tree growing in the backyard. If this is my lifestyle, as well as my mindset, I am going to vote (if I choose to vote) for the candidate who seems most willing to provide me with what I expect.

Any candidate who says "no new taxes" is living in fantasyland, not in reality. We cannot continue to pay for all of the free programs currently funded through tax revenue if we do not raise taxes. Deficit spending means that we are crashing our financial stability by borrowing money we don't have to pay for the financial obligations we do have. If we do not cut the financial obligations, we cannot pay the bills for them, and we devalue our currency and collapse our economy.

In our own lives, we need to live within our means, but we have a recent 25-year period of unprecendented economic prosperity that led the majority of people throughout the world to demand the highest level of lifestyle any country has ever seen. We bought what we wanted, when we wanted it, sloughing off the reality that it has to be paid for or forfeited. The result is closed economic doors that may never reopen because no one paid the amount due when it was due and in full. Again, if you cannot afford to pay for it, you cannot afford to buy it -- and buying on credit is still buying it! Walking away from one's debts was never an option until the government made it an option by recent financial decisions that allowed consumers to do so. The bills are still out there, still unpaid, but there is no one standing in line to make the payments.

There are few honest politicians, just individuals who think they can either do the job differently in a system that is inherently designed to prevent anyone from making real changes or individuals who crave the power that comes with a political career. It does not matter which candidate is elected because politicians vote their decisions, not the will of the people. Our system has lost the rule of the majority for the political expedience of the powers behind the talking heads on the TV screen. One man/one vote used to mean that "my" man represented "my" vote; today, it means that the elected politician represents his/her own interests regardless of what the people want.

We didn't allow people truly to fail, to lose everything they have and have to earn it back, during the recent financial crisis. Government stepped in and manufactured a hail Mary pass that seemed to be caught for a touchdown, but was fumbled in the end zone. We are no better off today than we were 2 years ago, or even a year ago, but we are much better at hiding how badly our economy is failing than we were then. It was so obvious that we had inflated our lifestyle to the point where collapse was going to be the only result, but people were shocked when it happened. This was nothing like the Great Depression, and I believe it's going to take that kind of collapse to turn our lives around, not just to get us back on track in our own lives, but in the role of government in our lives. We have to be able to stand on our own two feet, not on our daddy's toes, as we make our way through our adult lives and responsibilities. Anyone who relies on the government to care for them, rather than caring for themselves, creates a dependency on a paternalistic agency that is unhealthy and economically dangerous.

Yes, I have voted. I am not happy with the default choices I have made, Democrat, Republican, and Independent, but all I can do is work with what is on the ballot. For every opportunity to vote to limit government, I have voted to do so, whether candidates or ballot measures. I do not believe in entitlement programs, nor do I believe anyone who promises to make the kinds of changes that simply cannot be made. I do not support anyone who believes that we can buy our way out of economic instability, nor do I believe anyone who promises to go to Washington and get things done.

The reality is that we are beyond the sophomoric rhetoric and we should be smarter than the way we are treated by the publicity campaigns of politicians who make promises they cannot keep.