We are all aware of the slippery slope that the profligate spending of our politicians has put our nation on, and those who are honest enough to admit it know that the mighty United States of America is headed for a fiscal disaster that, if our course is not drastically altered, will shake the very foundations of our stability and reduce the greatest nation the world has ever known to a Greece-like shell complete with social upheaval and worthless currency.
When we think about the ramifications of our decades of foolishness, we tend to be concerned about the social fall out, the unemployment, the effect on take home pay, the quality of life and the unpleasant and painful changes in America.
What we do not tend to think about is what will happen to a military that is no longer able to keep up with our enemies in the development and manufacture of modern weapons. We fail to consider the consequences of falling behind the rest or the world in an age where a short lag in research and development can mean facing a weapon we have no defense for.
What brought the Berlin wall down was the Soviet Union realizing they could not afford to keep up with the U.S. militarily and that President Reagan was not afraid to do whatever it took to protect America.
He stared them down across the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union pulled out of territory they had held for over half a century.
We simply outspent them and they couldn't keep up. Could we do it now?
And what's going to happen when things like fire and police departments start making cuts? What about water quality and disease control and infrastructure maintenance and food inspection and a thousand other essential services that could and will be affected if America continues on this path to fiscal insanity?
Socialism is a one-way street to oblivion. It cannot work; it never has because the system becomes so top heavy with entitlement and insatiable government that no nation's economy can stand the strain.
If you'll look at the State of California and what has happened there you can see what is happening to America as a nation. Stockton, California has already declared bankruptcy, the largest city in the nation to ever do so and I fear there will be many more to follow.
California is a state with everything, hundreds of miles of shoreline, fertile farmland, the most productive wine growing region in the nation, abundant tourist attractions, beautiful weather, state of the art technology development and manufacturing, ports, beaches, a massive entertainment industry and the most populous state in the Union.
Yet, with all this going for them, California is suffering fiscal shortfalls in the billions and the politicians refuse to do anything meaningful about it.
The entitlement programs in the state were put in place when times were good, and politicians spent any surplus as soon as they could get their hands on it never giving thought to the rainy days to come in the future, increasing state union and social entitlement commitments as they strolled merrily down the primrose path.
If there has ever been a testament to the fallacy of "taxing the rich" to solve a government's fiscal problems, California is a shining example because the only solution their politicians can seem to come up with is to increase taxes, and every time they do more and more affluent, productive people leave the state taking their businesses and their money with them, further shrinking the tax base, increasing the unemployment situation and dumping more people on the social dole.
In essence, that is what is happening to our nation as a whole as politicians of both parties pay lip service to "balancing the budget" but ignoring the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room, neither party having the guts to tell the American public what is really going on.
Our federal tax structure, voluminous regulations, NAFTA, and the other one-sided trade agreements we've made over the years have combined to move American businesses off shore, taking thousands of American jobs with them.
And now, if fully implemented, Obamacare will saddle the American people with another unneeded and unwise tax burden, more commerce-killing regulations and nobody even knows what else, as it seems that even those who have read the 2,700 page monstrosity are able to figure out what it contains.
Our enemies have no respect for, and no fear of, Barack Obama and, by extension, America. They continue to build the strength of their militaries while our own military suffers through a malaise of budget cuts and an administration that doesn't even understand what’s going on in the world.
As in the case of California, the wolf is at the door of America and the present administration acts as if it's a pussycat.
America cannot maintain the present entitlement programs and support a government this size and keep on living on a credit card.
Something has got to give - and the way things are going, it’s going to be the economy and welfare of The United States of America.
You can believe it now or believe it later, but believe it you will.
Pray for our troops.
What do you think?
God bless America
Charlie Daniels
