We have seen some rapid action lately on some of our most pressing national problems. The stimulus package and energy legislation mandating better gas mileage and emissions controls are examples. The bank bailouts, distasteful as they were, were also necessary to prevent financial petrification and are now starting to be paid back with interest. But when problems are less than immediately catastrophic our current milieu seems to have a great deal of difficulty coming to grips with them. The problem is often lack of courage. Leaders know certain things must be done, but they shrink at asking the people they represent to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve them. The politicians are too often afraid of not getting re-elected. Would that more had a priority of doing what is right and needed rather than what will sell at re-election time.
You certainly have to place a certain amount of blame on the public itself. Too often they demand services but somehow feel they can have all they want without paying for them. Too many office-seekers have been all too eager to make the promises that have encouraged that mindset over the years.
For one example close to home, most of California's water system was put in place when the state's population stood at 18 million. It gives you an idea how well that system was designed 45 years ago when you consider we now have 38 million and most of the state's needs are still being met. Yet, inevitably, we have outgrown it, and increasingly, gaps are appearing. There are effective plans combining conservation with new storage to deliver the quantity now needed. But the legislature is stymied over how to fund it. The Republicans want it all to be by a state bond. The Democrats say the interest on the bond would add another $1 billion a year to an already unbalanced budget. They want to fund it 1/3 by bond and the rest by user fees. While they argue fields lie fallow and the problem grows more acute. You just can't get around the fact that with the state budget the way it is, the money to build this project that both sides agree is necessary will have to entail some form of making those who use the water pay for it. But wedded to their no-tax pledges, the Republicans will not face reality.
The same kinds of dynamics are at work with problems like the coming shortfalls in Social Security. It really isn't rocket science. One or some combination of three things will have to happen: Either the payroll deductions for employees and employers will have to be raised, the retirement age will have to be raised or benefits will have to be cut. If neither of the first two are done, benefits will need to be cut to 73% of what they are now. So, why don't they act? Because nobody wants to tell the people the truth, that's why. They "kick the can down the road," and hope for a miracle, or at least put things off for someone else to have to deal with later--presumably after present congressmen and women are no longer in office.
We'll see how it pays out with health care, too. There are actually two main problems that need to be solved. One is the 47 million people are not covered. That has to be fixed. The other is that costs keep going up faster than economic growth and inflation, the rendering the system unsustainable and guaranteed to lead to a crash like the housing-banking-derivatives crash we have just been through when the economy can no longer support the price structure. Those two are the bedrock needs that have to be faced. Instead, too much of the debate has been stuck on outlandish fears and gotcha points. I happen to feel a "public option" would help a great deal to keep prices in line. But there are other paths to that goal, such as really stringent price controls that could accomplish the same purpose, though they would make government much more directly intrusive in the economics of the system. If leaders actually want to solve the problem, they will have to decide. But that would, like the other problems mentioned, take some honesty and courage.
This is an important enough issue it would be very noble for members of congress to truly solve the problem, even if it would lead to their defeat next time around. There is something to be said for being able to look one's self in the eye in the mirror and say, "I saved thousands of lives," or, "I helped keep the U.S. economy competitive." It would be nice to see that kind of courage and integrity in evidence in our own day a little more.
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