Gunn
—Editor’s Note: Views expressed in guest columns and letters to the editor reflect the views of the author, not the views of The State News.
When President Clinton exited the White House in 2001, he left the United States with about a $130 billion surplus. At the present time, we have more than a $15 trillion deficit. Aha, caught you! You think this opinion piece is going to be just another attack on the president and the Democrats. Sorry about that, but you have it a bit wrong.
My true focus is not on our president, or on any of our leaders for that matter. My focus is on the money that has to be paid by someone.
If we look across the world to any number of countries, we see similar disasters brewing. Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece come to mind when one thinks about countries that have been unable to rein in their populations and live within a workable budget.
As we look at those countries, we see a growing number of people demanding they continue to receive high wages, continuous health care and jobs — or the pay for doing no jobs — for life. They see no reason to fire someone for incompetence, and they all expect lavish vacations that can bankrupt any company.
Some demand free food and free housing while never taking the next step to wonder who will pay the bills. The common response is: “I deserve everything, and the government must pay for it!”
But who does pay the bills?
This is where we stand in the United States. No one seems to be able to find a detailed answer that can be acceptable to the vast majority and the many minorities across the land.
The answers to who will pay range from the vast middle class to the wealthiest of the wealthy, from bankers to stock brokers and from martians to creatures from another solar system vacationing on Uranus. Everyone points at someone, but no one is getting down to the old “brass tacks” and coming up with answers that work.
So here goes the opinion.
I do not have any faith in the older-than-50 crowd to do anything productive. I am one of them, and I think that my generation has dropped the ball and is far too greedy and feeble to pick it up. When you look at where things have gone in the past 12 years, it is hard to feel confident with any of our leaders.
Now, do I think the United States is on a downhill plunge, never to return to its once greatness?
Absolutely not!
My belief is more about who the saviors are, and that “who” is well under 50.
Demanding everything for seemingly nothing doesn’t work anymore.
Getting married and expecting that I and my new wife should get a new home — fully furnished and paid for — with at least one new car in the driveway, a high-paying job, five-weeks vacation and a guarantee that all my children will attend not only private schools K-12, but college at MIT or Harvard are just not in the cards for the average American. Decisions are going to have to be made in the very near future about what a citizen of the United States can and cannot maintain with the income provided by the government.
Today’s politicians are terrified to say anything about reductions in almost anything.
You can’t reduce funding to schools in California because that would hurt the large number of children who come across the Mexican border every morning to attend California schools.
You can’t reduce funding to inner-city hospitals because the homeless will move out to the suburbs.
You can’t reduce funding to the military because we will simply be opening ourselves up to attacks and invasion.
We seem to be in an endless gridlock. And no member of the present leadership generation feels any compulsion to go for the heart and carve out a solution that will be grudgingly accepted and work.
So who is left?
Well, it is you, if you are between the ages of 18 and 35.
The country is in need of thinkers and doers who will bring back a society that works for what it gets, who realize that a manageable few will need support to survive and that for a country to survive and continue to grow, everyone will have to live within a budget — including the government. I really don’t have any answers to offer. I am old and fading, along with others in a generation that has not done what it should for the country.
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The time has come for the intelligent young adults of our land to worry less about bar night on Thursday, the frat party on Friday, the tailgate on Saturday, the winner of the yearly pennant or if MSU needs to add more to the stadium.
The time has come for the true young adults to start the process of bringing the U.S. back.
Craig Gunn is a guest columnist at The State News and an academic specialist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Reach him at gunn@egr.msu.edu.
