204 – “Good tidings… high hopes….”

IN DEFENSE OF COMMON SENSE

By Hetty Gray

 

#203

 

“Good tidings… high hopes….”

 

Nothing spurs the imagination more than the launch of a new calendar year. Oh, yes! The old passes away and a threshold appears that bodes all manner of opportunities — or perils, as it were.

 

Many of you actually sit down and make a list of resolutions. Others do not. Most of us mentally assess the passing of the previous year and vow to do some things a little better and abandon others. Diets tend to tip the list of health concerns after a holiday loaded with hospitality and calories.

 

However, more to the point, maybe it’s about time we made a list of resolutions for those whom we elect to represent us. They talk a good game during the election season, but more and more we see a kind of apathy sit in once they actually go to Washington, D.C. and settle in to the “sausage factory.”

 

Forget Willy Wonka. His challenge was minor compared to a burgeoning national debt that will drown our children and grandchildren. As I have ‘oft quipped before. Nothing is more egregious — or habit forming — than the adoption of falling under the spell of OPM. Other people’s money.

 

It’s available via taxes and oh so exceedingly easy to spend. Working households operate on a budget, even those with high incomes. It would be nice if Congress fielded a sensible budget that attacks the deficit like a homeowner attacks termites. It’s not an odd comparison either. Unless they are monitored carefully termites can eat away at a home and go unnoticed until the floor joists collapse and the structure falls onto the crawl space or into the basement.

 

As you go about your budgeting this year, make it a point to press your legislators (both U.S. Representatives and U.S. Senators) to put an end to the spending spree. This deficit lies at the feet of both major parties. It is not specific to either the Democrat or the Republicans. Without a concerted effort to stop the spending, I see little hope for the resilience that America is known for worldwide.

 

Were we attacked in an equal or more serious fashion than on 9/11, the outcry would be deafening. The national debt is no less destructive, yet it goes ignored. As I listened today, a local channel broadcast a radio series from “Radio Spirits.” Irene Dunne introduced a wonderful family broadcast with a plea for Americans. The year was 1952. The nation had endured World War II and families across the nation looked forward to a world that embraced peace.

 

She asked for Americans to pray. “Pray as a family,” she pleaded. Well, today it is more and more rare to find an American family sitting down to eat together, let alone give thanks to God and ask for his guidance and blessing. This is not to say that many of us do not do that. We do it as a couple and also begin a meal with a prayer when we entertain guests at our table.

 

Let us begin anew for 2015. Amid the festive parties and the toasts, set apart your life on New Year’s Day to ask God to bless America and to gird her people with enough strength to pull herself up by her financial bootstraps and begin a plan of renewal. Without that renewal, we face the fate of Ancient Rome and other major civilizations that spent untold amounts on social programs and lauded sports above common sense.

 

Pray for America. She needs every word. May we all experience a Happy New Year. A really secure 2015 demands our attention to detail. Red may be the cardinal color for Christmas, but black should reign in finances for everyone, from the one-person household to the federal government. Think about it.

 

 

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