Barry MacDonald -- Editorial
A politician has a choice to make -- the same choice that politicians have faced for decades. But the choice now involves consequences looming just over the horizon that politicians, such as Ted Kennedy, could have reasonably hoped that they would not live to see.
On the one hand the choice amounts to going further into the equivalent of credit card debt (using other peoples' money) by providing money or influence to favored people in return for votes or influence with the purpose of securing for oneself a position of power -- with no concern about deficits and debt, and therefore diminished subsequent interest in the prosperity of other peoples' children, outside, possibly, a small circle of friends.
On the other hand, to genuinely care about the welfare of the nation's children and grandchildren a politician these days must necessarily face questions of finance. Just the interest on financing the nation's debt will in the near future become a crushing burden. The promises made by generations of voluble Republicans and Democrats concerning Medicare and Social Security will soon be seen as empty.
Sooner or later many more of us in the private sector, who have to live with the inconvenience of market discipline, and who up until now have been inattentive, will awaken to the fact that government employees have better pay, benefits, and retirement arrangements, and we will be asking why this is so. It will become apparent that public sector unions and politicians have been in cahoots; one party getting out the vote, the other bringing home the bacon. In the midst of economic difficulty the private sector has been shedding jobs, but the federal government has been hiring: Why?
The brave politicians who genuinely care about the nation's future will be saying "no" to well-organized interest groups who have the ability to mount ad campaigns against them, with the certainty that opposing politicians will make every effort to portray them as mean-spirited and racist, and with the knowledge that most of the media will take sides against them.
One could almost feel sorry for the politicians who entered public service with the intention of doing good but by slow degrees and half-measures found themselves to be (perhaps because of timidity?) more and more compromising their larger constituencies' interests in favor of their own. One could almost feel sorry, except that as a group they are very clever people, and thus they bear responsibility.
The time is approaching when deceitful rhetoric is no longer sufficient to cover up impending financial calamity. *
"There is but one Straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington
We would like to thank the following people for their generous support for this journal (from 3/12/2010 . . . 5/18/2010): Michael A. Alaimo, John D. Alt, Larry G. Anderson, George E. Andrews, William D. Andrews, Ariel, Lee R. Ashmun, Gordon S. Auchincloss, A. D. Baggerley, Douglas W. Barr, David J. Bean, Bud & Carol Belz, Charles Benscheidt, Peter H. Block, Robert P. Bringer, Patrick J. Buchanan. Terry Cahill, Edward J. Cain, Dino Casalis, John B. Charlton, Laurence Christenson, Dianne C. DeBoest, Peter R. DeMarco, Francis, P. Destefano, Alice DiVittorio, John H. Downs, Don Dyslin, Irene M. Elkins, Nicholas Falco, Jane F. Gelderman, Gary D. Gillespie, Lee E. Goewey, Jim Hamilton, James E. Hartman, Thomas E. Heatley, Bernhard Heersink, Daniel V. Hickey, Nancy Holland, John A. Howard, David Ihle, Burleigh Jacobs, Robert R. Johnson, Loren R. Johnson, Warren W. Johnson, John H. Johnson, Edgar Jordan, Margaret Kearney, Robert L. Kemper, Edward B. Kiolbasa, Joseph D. Kluchinsky, Gloria Knoblauch, Charles B. Koehler, Mary S. Kohler, Thomas F. Kordonowy, Anne C. Kuhn, Alan Lee, Leonard S. Leganza, Herbert London, William H. Lupton, Paul T. Mandrodt, Howard S. Martin, Thomas J. McGreevy, Will K. McLain, Edwin Meese, Henry M. Mitchell, Walter M. Moede, Anthony W. Moro, Robert A. Moss, John M. Nickolaus, Michas M. Ohnstad, Harold K. Olson, Clark Palmer, Gary Phillips, Bernard L. Poppert, Melvin J. Ptacek, David Renkert, Shirley W. Roe, Steven B. Roorda, Katherine Ross, Herbert C. Schneider, Richard P. Schonland, John A. Schulte, Alvan I. Shane, William A. Shipley, L. Sideris, Ben T. Slade, David L. Smith, Thomas W. Smoot, Phillip Stark, Carl G. Stevenson, Lee Stoerzinger, Kenneth R. Thelen, W. G. Thompson, Paul B. Thompson, Jack E. Turner, James Walsh, Robert C. Whitten, Robert L. Wichterman Sr., Gaylord T. Willet, Robert F. Williams, Donald Wilson, Charles L. Wilson, Lee Wishing, Piers Woodriff, Chris Yunker, James P. Zaluba.
