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Author Topic: Commentary: This is not your father's country anymore - Cafferty  (Read 2035 times)
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nonesuche
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« on: February 24, 2009, 07:44:10 AM »

This is far from the most reactionary commentary I've read of late, IF we survive and I do have my doubts regarding that, I do believe this will be our future as Cafferty describes it. I do not mind living with less, having fewer luxuries. What I do mind is the burden my children and your children will carry to pay for our social security and medicare. The impact to their standard of living will resonate for the majority of their lives.

So just as the democrats drove a home to own for everyone, our children may never own homes while paying off our debts. This is more than paying it forward, our country's american dream will have been the price for this. Just wait for Obama's address tonight, his press secretary is out there this morning advancing that now we have to stop spending in Iraq in order to cut the deficit. I think many of us agree that the Iraq war needs to be resolved and quickly. What I do not like is Obama now using the deficit that the democrats have driven for all of this new spending, as not part of this problem.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/24/cafferty.america/index.html

NEW YORK (CNN) -- I think this time, it's different. I have this uneasy feeling our country is in the process of changing forever, and not necessarily for the better -- unless our perspective changes with it.

I have kicked around longer than most people: I'm 66 years old. I remember well the '50s and early '60s, which were times of unbridled enthusiasm, prosperity and opportunity.

The American dream was a job, a house, a car. A modest, affordable house and a car that was most likely a Chevrolet, Ford or Plymouth.

People weren't in debt buying things they couldn't afford, and neither was the government. There were recessions along the way -- relatively mild downturns of short duration -- but nothing like this feels like it's going to be.

The interest on the national debt will approach $500 billion a year this year or next. Our country is sinking into the quicksand of insolvency as surely as the victims of subprime mortgages who have lost their jobs and their houses and watched their savings evaporate in the stock market decline.

The current national debt is soaring past $12 trillion. The costs of the stimulus packages and bailouts (and stimulus package is just another words for bailout) are being tacked on and passed on because they are being paid for with money we don't have.

We are staring at unfunded liabilities for Medicare and Social Security in the tens of trillions of dollars. Where's that money going to come from? We have to either raise taxes or cut benefits. There are no other options.

The baby boomers are starting to retire and will consume an ever larger share of these entitlement programs. They will also age in sufficient numbers to drive the political agenda for the foreseeable future. Think they're going to want less Social Security and less Medicare? Think again.

The generation coming along behind them that will be asked to pay for all this can't. There are not enough good jobs left in this country to pay those kinds of bills.

At the end of the day, we are going to have to settle for less. Less money, smaller houses, smaller cars and smaller dreams.

This is not your father's country anymore. And we had better all start getting used to it.

On the bright side, our history shows that times of shared national sacrifice have resulted in our greatest national achievements. It's been a very long time since we have been called upon to make any kind of serious sacrifice. We were overdue until one day in September, when Lehman Brothers collapsed. We're not overdue anymore.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jack Cafferty.
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WhiskeyGirl
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« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2009, 09:00:36 AM »

Someone summed it up like this a few years ago (my paraphrase) "You have to be carefule about your Democrats, they're not your Daddy's Democrats."  We aren't being asked to sacrifice for the national good, we're being asked to spend ourself to destruction.

The Obamas preach preventive medicine, but have ignored opportunities to repair the financial system for years - people go on and on about how smart they are.  A little prevention years ago, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005 may have saved trillions of dollars and left a bright prosperous economy as our legacy to the next generation. 

For some reason, Obama only want's to leave debt and poverty for some groups.

my opinions
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crazybabyborg
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« Reply #2 on: February 26, 2009, 11:45:58 AM »

It has long been a cornerstone of American Values that we want our children to have better than what we've had. For generations that has been the driving force of our decisions and direction, and even differing viewpoints of how to achieve that goal, never lost sight of the achievement.

Look at what we've done, and what the agenda is right now..............

We are no longer speculating and struggling with how to achieve a better future for those coming after us. We have, in an astonishingly short flash of time, condemned our children's future to certainty of crippling financial debt and the ramifications of obligation to foreign countries. We cannot claim to have been unaware. We have the tallied reciept with each passage of legislation, and even when we don't read the legislation before passage, we have the "Balance Due" in black and white, bold print.   

We have already received the "Change" we were promised. The steps that will be taken from here on out are just to ensure that the bridges we are crossing, burn behind us.

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