Why big Government?

This campaign season is one of the more depressing I have been through in my 45+ years of voting. The economy is not going well and what do our Congressional and Presidential candidates offer - more "free" programs. This is what politicians do in an election year, but sooner or later the American people are going to get smart and start asking "where is all this money coming from?" I'll tell you where - it's on the backs of our children and grandchildren.

As a businessman and senior executive for many years, my companies went through many up and down cycles. When we were faced with a slow economy and a slowdown in business, we had to make changes. These changes usually meant cutting expenses and sometimes even laying off employees. In every case we were able to keep our company solvent, and this fiscal discipline almost always resulted in a more efficient company.

Our government has always been just the opposite. When economies slow, the political response is to give out money in the form of a "stimulus", bail out failing companies, bail out individuals who bought homes they could not afford - and all this with money we do not have - just increase the national debt and kick the problem down the road for our children and grandchildren to solve.

Have you ever seen a political leader step forward and say: "This will be a tough economy for a year or two so we need to reduce government expenses, and that may also require a reduction in the government work force" The answer is NO, because we have no strong political leaders anymore.

When revenues are down the response by government is to raise taxes. There is never any discussion about reducing expenses. This in my opinion is one of the fundamental problems in this country now . Our national debt is trillions of dollars (I won't give the exact amount because it will probably increase several billion while I write this blog). And as this debt continues to skyrocket, all our politicians talk about are new expanded government programs.

Just think about how this country would be reshaped if we had a national referendum vote on important issues...a direct vote by the American people:

- Should we reduce government expenses or raise taxes?
- With an approval rating of less than 10% should we put a 'two term' limit on Representatives and Senators, like we do with the President?

We know how the people would vote, that is why you will never see a national referendum and why things will probably never change in Washington until our economy collapses as a result of our own national debt. And guess who will be responsible for that debt...not our politicians.