It is becoming very clear that the American people, based on public opinion polls, at least, are living in a dream world, avoiding reality!
Polls indicate that the people do not want entitlement cuts to deal with the debt problems the nation faces.
At the same time, they do not want to see the debt limit raised next month!
The lack of economic knowledge and understanding is pitiful, as indeed many Americans lack the ability to balance their own checkbook or take care of their own finances, and yet, somehow, magically, they seem to think that the only thing that matters is do not touch anything, and refuse to recognize that entitlements must be paid for, and that the good faith and credit of the United States government is at stake if the debt limit is not raised!
While it is clear that most Americans want the corporations and the rich to pay more taxes, it is also clear that even doing so cannot resolve the debt or deficit crisis!
The fact is that all of us will have to pay MORE taxes in order to sustain the entitlements that most Americans do not want to be cut back! There is no free lunch, as the saying goes, and praying for divine guidance will also not be enough to deal with reality!
So the answer is to make sure that corporations and the top two percent of the people pay a higher tax rate as they paid under Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton.
Secondly, all of the rest of us will also have to pay higher taxes and stop complaining about it, since we want the various entitlement programs to be sustained.
Third, there is an essential requirement to start cutting back on overseas defense bases and military commitments, which are having a horrible effect on our budget deficits.
Fourth, there is a dire need to reform the Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security system long term, so as to sustain them. Anyone who suggests no changes is being totally irresponsible!
Fifth, the debt limit MUST be raised next month, as not to do so would be totally reckless, dangerous, and detrimental to the economic welfare of the nation, as well as the world at large!
Finally, the spirit of compromise somehow must be promoted, or else the nation will at some point be in as dangerous a situation internally as it was 150 years ago, with economic class warfare, age warfare, racial warfare in the offing, a horrific thought!
A spirit of nationalism, and bipartisanship, is sorely needed, and right now, to resolve the nation’s ills!