Financial directions we can vote on

Mostly the votes are for the politicians who will do what we want to happen in our best future interests. Mostly these interests are vital national interests.

Like it or not, most of us are entering the times when we are going to be left holding the bag, also called the financial sins of our mothers and fathers and the politicians they elected. Often we are also present beneficiaries of much of this largesse. And it is at all levels, to include local, state, and federal.

The examples are everywhere, and are being dealt with as best politicians and voters who elect them can…postpone and put off to the future. For example, New Jersey, the state, may have as much as $113 billion in unfunded deficiencies. Numbers are hard to figure given all the smoke and mirrors and accounting games, but the trend reflects things that began to go off the tracks when the state, as well as other governments as in local and federal, went from pay as you go to borrowing to pay for all the promises that all to often also got votes. Now it is time to pay the piper, or default, with the latter’s terrible consequences. Even muddling through will not probably work in the long run.

Much of the rub appears today as budget competitions between promised benefits, which are a growing lot based on demographics and ever increasing promises; and the basic government services like defense, home security, infrastructure for our common good and enhancement, and even border security to include food safety.

Here is where we voters can make a difference in whom we vote for, now and in the future; and locally, state, and federal. The choices of financial directions are becoming more stark than anytime in the last few decades. Two examples stick out. Is national defense to become secondary to social security and Medicare? Are bureaucracies like defense to be supported as a jobs program first? These questions are most serious for those who choose to accept them. Most won’t, it seems, and will take what ever they get as a result.

To conclude, we Americans generate a lot of national wealth that will pay for many things that our elected politicians will decide in distributing our taxes. It is suggested that politicians who want to achieve their most idealistic socialistic and hippie and English commune goals with our money are now passé. Rather we should be voting for politicians who will help us achieve our national interests that we can pay for, both paying for our future as well as the financial sins of our mothers and fathers. It sure looks like it will take a new national party to make this happen. And it will take a new generation of Americans not bound to the status quo presented to them, as ugly as the picture is today.