Leaders vs Puppets

Has anyone noticed that traditional politicians are not leaders and if they were would be ill-suited for getting elected and re-elected. Why? They need to compromise and pass accommodating legislation that alleviates their obligations; those that enabled them to raise the money for their campaigns. That means back door deals, pork, and earmark arrangements with other legislators so that multiple legislators can pay the obligations to their special interest benefactors. The upcoming presidential election demonstrates the level of obligation as the major candidates will spend $1 billion – supporting and voting for any major politician for president is simply embracing a lie. They are not leaders and even if they had some leadership ability their obligations to special interest group benefactors will prohibit them from implementing any substantive changes that are needed to solve our critical problems.

 

A clear example is Social Security (which includes Medicare). Every election Social Security reform is promised by candidates that will fix the problem, but after the election – nothing. As a brief aside, George Bush’s proposal would actually break the system faster instead of helping it. However, the problem has been known for decades because it is a simple financial projection with reliable variables – annual cost of living increases, annual inflation rate for healthcare expenses, and aging demographics of Americans. This allows for a simple projection that Social Security will grow to a point that in 2019, this program will consume ALL of our national budget. It will continue its growth due to baby boomers enrolling into this program over the next 30 years from now and in 2037 will consume almost 8 times our nation’s budget!

 

This problem alone will quickly bankrupt America!

 

However, the obligations to powerful special interest groups like insurance and pharmaceutical companies and AARP are strong and these groups want the system to stay as it is if not have it expanded. When was the last legislation that actually was an improvement for a major problem facing America?

 

Social Security is not the only critical issue facing America and none of the special interest group puppets that are the traditional politicians will be able to address them, even if they have the vision giving them the ability to adequately do so.

 

The media is slowly unearthing the information I have been yelling about for months – from Newsweek articles about the Social Security problem as well as explaining that even a complete halt to the emission of greenhouse gasses would still cause global warming for decades as well as a Time article that spoke about the US Economy’s strength due solely to deficit spending and the abundant growth in the federal government over the last 6 years and without these our GDP would be negative.

 

The problem is informing people is only half of the battle, getting leadership with the vision and freedom to act is the real issue.