Competing Visions

In the current marketplace for ideas, there are three main "plans", "road maps", or "visions" for America's future.

First let's define where we are. "We the People" are broke. "We the People" are in large part (up to 22%, in real terms) without jobs. "We the People" are in debt up to our eyeballs in our private lives, as well as corporately with the expense of "two wars" (actually, one war on two fronts), massive payments on an unimaginably large public debt, and the unfunded mandates of Social Security and Medicare.

What is the President's response to this crisis? Create a brand new unfunded and unfundable entitlement program, while jacking energy prices (which are already to high, thanks to Federal Programs) through the roof by means of a "Cap and Trade" program. This "Cap and Trade" program is no more, no less, than a naked power grab by the Federal Government seeking to Nationalize our energy infrastructure, just as it has the Banking Sector, two out of the Big Three Automakers (Who came to congress looking for a hand out... What they got was a new ownership structure; a new master. "We the People" better take note!), and the Health Care sector which alone is fully 20% of our "private" economy. So, the President's Vision for America is Central economic, social, and political control, which is more reminiscent of Communist China, Cuba, or Venezuela than anything else.

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) has published his "RoadMap Plan 2.0". In a brevity that can only do disservice to the ideas, he wants to return the "New Deal" back into something which is fiscally... reasonable. (Responsible is just too problematic a word to use for socialism.) Through a mixture of cuts, tax hikes, some privatization, and a little bit of voodoo (though nothing like the scale of Lovecraftian mathematics of the President's plan). He has convinced the Congressional Budget Office to declare that this plan would be solvent by 2058; while the "current plan" (the President's Budget) cannot be projected out that far due to the complete economic collapse of the predictive models well before reaching that point. Why 2058? Because most of the Baby Boomers will be dead by then, I reckon.

Finally, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) has ideas that nobody seems to like! (Which in my book is an excellent sign.) Briefly, Ron Paul is a Libertarian who is affiliated with the Republican Party as a marriage of convenience, as far as I can tell. His ideas are quite simply, get the Federal Government out of private business, private lives, and back into the box built for it by the framers of our Constitution. His plan for health care? Wean the public off of Medicaid, Medicare; support charities and private businesses enabling them to provide universal coverage. His plan for the economy? To bring the Federal Reserve Bank under control through tight auditing, with an eye to the future elimination of that institution. And eventually to wean the economy off of paper money and allow the States (and others?) to establish commodity backed (Gold and/or Silver) currencies. These are radical ideas; ideas that reek of common sense. Is there room in Washington for common sense? Only "We the People", the voters, can truly decide.