I feel an obligation to remind all of us, who mostly don’t like bad news, that we are all in this together, regardless of party affiliation. We have managed to bury our heads in the sand about what we can look forward to in the future.
For too many years, we have allowed our Congress to cut taxes without admitting that we were avoiding the inevitable.
Starting with President Bush, who adopted temporary tax cuts during 2001-03, we are operating on a continuing war status, without having the money to cover the costs.
We know that servicing the debt, that is, paying interest on what we owe, decreases the amount we have left (the discretionary civilian budget, that we have after paying social security, health and emergency support] that we need to take care of our looming public needs.
We refuse to admit that we need money to maintain scientific and technological leadership, to fight climate change and promote clean energy by means of research and development. The future will not just take care of itself.
Without planning to have the money to take care of the future we will lose the ability to grow our economy, educate our children, train our workers to work in an increasingly complex economy, repair and build our infrastructure, catch up with the new technologies for industry, energy, transportation.
How much longer will we simply bemoan the unequal distribution of wealth and allow the cowards in Washington who refuse to accept their responsibilities because they want to preserve their very secure well-paid jobs in Washington? How much longer can we wait to find leaders in both parties?
Esther Confino
New Hyde Park
