By Greg Petty
March 2005
Core Values
The 2004 national elections contained a lot
of rhetoric about “core” American values and
which candidates represented those values that made America
strong in the past and will allow us to maintain our national
identity.
The more I started to think about what I believed
to be core American values I realized that many of those
values had been modified. Caused by either the excesses
of our society, its sometime colossal failures or by technological
achievement. Let me name a few of those:
The massive immigration influx of the 19th
Century that nearly inundated us also provided some of our
most heroic and innovative citizens. (Africans, Irish, Chinese,
Slavs, Italians) Our capitalist ideology and practices did
not do an even adequate job of providing the basics needed
for human survival. Don’t believe me? Read about the
slums and tenements of New York City. The labor strikes
throughout the 1870’s and 1880’s in which Americans
died to protest their mistreatment. The stock market crashes
of 1873 and 1929. Our first introduction into World War
(WWI) and the idiocy of old military tactics applied in
the face of improved methods of killing humans.
The
20th century witnessed more changes than in any other 100
year span of time in history. America changed from an agrarian
to a largely urban society and fantastic technological changes
leap-frogged each prior decade’s achievements. Our
grandparents literally went from the horse and buggy to
automobiles and a man walking on the moon. A journey that
once took days could be accomplished in hours. I still remember
conversations with elders in 1969 who believed that Neil
Armstrong’s walk on the moon was a hoax. No human
could go to the moon! The great blight of slavery, and its
inherent contradiction of our democratic ideals, nearly
sundered the nation apart and did not truly begin to unwind
itself until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
I believe the political choices we make right
now are crucial to defining again what America stands for,
how we will treat the least among us and how the rest of
the world will view us. Will we be able to take care of
the changing needs of our own society or will we cling to
a long gone perception of ourselves? Will we be a responsible
partner in the world of nations or try to go it alone believing
only we have the solutions? Will we be honest with ourselves?
So what support of core American values (albeit
amended) and actions have we seen so far in 2005 from the
Bush Administration?
First came the inaugural address about America
supporting Democracy everywhere in the world. Admirable
thought, and it supports our values, I am truly in favor
of that ideal but it’s not honest. America is not
doing it and has not done it for a long time. Furthermore,
America is not capable of doing it on our own. We have not
even brought the inhabitants of Iraq, after two years of
occupation and millions of dollars, reliable supplies of
electricity and water. America supports Saudi Arabia, Egypt
and Pakistan…one created monarchy and two dictatorships.
Nice speech but seriously folks we do not have (nor should
we go it alone) the troops, the economic capacity (we are
a deficit nation – we are broke) or the political
will to make this proposal anything other than a nice sentiment.
Let’s be realistic and careful how we spend our military
capital, the lives of our young men and women. Helping tsunami
victims, intervening with other nations in Bosnia and Darfur,
yes, unilateral war no.
The next proposal for capital the Bush Administration
brought to us was the 2006 budget. This proposal comes from
a President who has presided over the largest federal deficits
in our history. The deficit figure for 2006 I believe is
something in excess $400 billion. In spite of these deficits,
the top tier of income earners and corporations receive
tax breaks. Trickle down didn’t work under Reagan
and guess what, it still doesn’t. Bush has said these
tax breaks will remain sacrosanct. But how can they? We
cannot afford the cuts already given and the plan to make
the tax cuts permanent is frankly shameful. On the spending
side Congress has to restore the concept of balancing the
revenue to what they appropriate. There is plenty of blame
to go around Washington. Continuing in this fashion seriously
weakens our economic security. Japan owns $720 billion of
our debt and China already owns $500 billion. Our interests
with them can, and do, collide. However they own our debt.
What happens when they decide not to keep financing our
profligate spending? Mr. President, economic security is
every bit as important as our physical defense.
Congress should declare this budget DOA. We
have to get back to running our nation as you and I have
to run our personal finances, spending should be less than
revenue. My proposal for a place to start:
| • |
Cut the proposed budget for defense spending by
at least 30%. The 2006 proposal calls for Pentagon
spending of $419 billion dollars. It is astounding
to me that our society spends $1.148 billion dollars
a day for our mutual defense. Clearly the rest of
the world has to start playing a larger role in world
security. As an American citizen I am no longer willing
to forsake improvements to other aspects of my country
to subsidize their inactivity. Additionally, what
Iraq and Afghanistan has also shown us is that expensive
high tech weapons do not make for peace on the ground
or help you maintain it. We need to go back to the
Harry Truman years, “the buck stops here”
and force our political and military leaders to spend
less money on fancy weapons, allocate what they do
have more wisely (men on the ground) and begin a relentless
search for every “more bang for the buck”
opportunity for our forces. A 30% cut still leaves
a budget of $293 billion or $803 million a day, hardly
a pittance. Stop the growth of the defense budget
monster and make our allies participate. |
| • |
Begin the debate for reforming the Medicare entitlement.
The financial problems are worse than the Social Security
Trust. |
Part II in the April Issue...
