Your Grandchildren’s Legacy
By
Oh, the poor grandchildren and the terrible financial legacy that will be left to them as a result of the stimulus plan recently approved by Congress. Just think of the wonderful legacy they will be missing out on because of all the taxpayer money that is going to be spent over the next ten years.
You’ve got to be kidding!
What is the legacy they currently have? Inadequate highway systems, bridges that are falling down, the worst rail system in the industrialized world, a medical system more than a quarter of the population cannot afford and doesn’t have access to, and then, of course, there’s the environment, two badly managed wars, and a financial system that is coming apart at the seams – just to mention a few.
Whether the money is spent by way of the stimulus package or by individual packages approved separately, the money has to be spent. Why is that? Because the current generation refused to spend the money to secure their grandchildren’s future when they should have.
Don’t feel smug you folks on the left side of the political spectrum you belong right up there with those on the right. You’re the ones that went along with the “trickle” down theories of the Reagan years only to find out that the only things falling were grades in schools, bridges, highways, and bond issues designed to improve everything else.
The idea that the American taxpayer is better capable at spending money for the good of the country than the government, be it national, state, or local is, at this point, laughable. That’s the same mindset that gave us the concept of industry self regulation: corporations and banks are better able to regulate themselves than the government. Yeah, right!
Making the claim that the Republican Party has lost its way is a no brainer but, so far, the Democrats in Congress haven’t proved that they have the right map. However, at least they have one. The Conservatives keep pulling out the same map that got us lost in the first place and claim that their old map will eventually work because the previous leadership in the White House didn’t know how to read it and that’s how we became lost. Really.
The truth is we are in uncharted territory. What worked in the Great Depression won’t help now (although many of the good things that were not dismantled are still working – The Federal Reserve, FDIC, etc.) because the playing field is totally different. This is not 1933 and people, the country, and the world are completely different. It’s also not the 1970s or 1980s. We are in a global economy now and when we sneeze “everyone” in the world gets a cold. We are the dominant economy, the dominant power, the dominant everything.
It would be nice to think that we can reinvigorate the
The solution, as always, is in the art of negotiation and compromise. The left and the right have both taken the stance that it is their way or the highway. They are both wrong.
The recent election demonstrated a severe dissatisfaction with the Conservative wing of the Republican Party, which has dominated the direction of the country. However, that does not mean the people would like to see it replaced by the Liberal wing of the Democratic Party. The answer is in the middle and until both parties adjust their hard-line approaches to solving the problems we face, the problems will not go away.
What we seem to have now is a “we won so we get to do it our way” approach from one side and a “let’s do what we can to help them fail” approach from the other side.
Claiming that it is wrong to leave our grandchildren a legacy of debt just so we can have more money to spend on ourselves seems to be the ultimate answer of the “me” generation. As it stands, our grandchildren are going to be stuck paying for it one way or the other. We didn’t do our job in making sure our grandchildren’s future was secure but at least we can make some amends and get the process moving.
At this point we have waited so long to come to grips with our own bad behavior we will not see the real benefits of a modern rail system or electric grid or energy independence but if we take advantage of this opportunity that we now have perhaps our grandchildren will – even if they do have to pay for it themselves.