I think everyone needs to stop hyperventilating and take a deep breath and settle down into some serious thought about where America is today. Complete and entire reevaluation of the nation's priorities are in order. An act of God (or nature for Wayne) has presented us with an opportunity to do this and to let it slip by would be a shame and do great harm to the future generations of this nation.
New Orleans has to be rebuilt. This is a poltical and economic reality. We have a crisis on our borders. We have Islamist Jihadists that want to do us great physical and financial harm to the point of wiping us off the face of the earth. We have enemies in North Korea and China that seek the same ends as the Jihadists, but perhaps have the military capability to achieve the result. We have a tax funded retirement system that is going broke. We have an antiquated economic system based on debt instead of investment. We have an energy policy that makes our economy actually dependent on our enemies. We have record numbers of children being born out wedlock. We have a society based on the seeking of individual pleasure and selfish self-interest that is concerned more with the marital status of Kenny Chesney and the procreation of Britney Spears than addressing these problems. We are also at a point in our history where we have never been more divided and many people seem more interested in actually fostering harm to the country in some attempt to advance their own poltical agenda. In short, we are in crisis mode and nobody is willing to say so.
Tough times call for tough measures and bold leadership. Proposing to spend $200 billion that you don't have is not bold leadership. It is capitulation to the inevitable result. It is time to tear up the old playbook and get down to seriousness in addressing all these issues by completely revealuating how we do everything. One successful test to see if a democracy is mature should be its ability to establish priorities, streamline procedures and engage in fresh, new thinking after a national emergency. FDR did it. Between 1939 and 1942, spending for nondefense programs was cut by 22%. Everyone realized that no matter how popular or politically entrenched a program, the nation's priorities had to change. Truman did it. In 1951, Truman and a Democratic Congress cut nonmilitary spending by 28% in one year!
The American people are going to have to demand that "politics as usual" end. Special interests that subvert national priorities are going to have to be told no. Unimportant, inefficient, duplicative and obsolete programs that in no way address the problems noted above are going to have to go. Foreign aid is over. Petty bickering over the 10 commandments is over. Idiotic environemtal regulations that hamper energy independency and economic development are over. Porous borders are over. Undeclared wars over undefined enemies are over. Penalizing citizens on their income is over. Social Security as you know it is over. To not think so is to adopt LBJ's idiom that we can have "our guns AND butter" that has failed over the past 40 years and to continue to make the same mistakes over and over until it IS finally over.
We have the opportunity to revamp everything. We don't have the leaders in either party to do it. The American people are going to have to demand it of them in one voice. The questions are can we unite and do we have the will to do so? I'm not optimistic.
