A fork in the road

EDITOR:

Our country is at a fork in the road. I am not talking about just health care reform or the economy. I am talking about a government that has become detached from the people, and so taken with its own sense of importance, that it is out of control. Over the last several decades government has grown to a size never contemplated by our founding fathers. It has injected itself into our personal lives and the private sector in ways that strain the Constitution to its breaking point.

During the War of 1812, all the records of the federal government were evacuated from Washington, D.C. in 12 covered wagons. Does anyone even know today how many departments, bureaus, agencies, and/or services there are in the federal government?

Our representatives have become a bunch of hogs at the feeding trough (our wallets), not concerned with governing, but with maintaining their positions. They no longer answer to the people but rather to the "special interests". Why do we allow "earmarks" and "riders?" If something is important, shouldn't it be debated openly rather then inserted into a totally disparate bill in the middle of the night? Why does our government cry poor when it comes to funding Medicare and Social Security, which will soon be broke, but manages to find money for pork? The very government that demonizes capitalism and the private sector is rampant with waste, fraud and abuse, is a poster child for inefficiency, and has become corrupted by special interests. This is not a left-right issue; it is a right-wrong issue.

And there is no end in sight. The more you feed the hogs, the more insatiable they become. And the more arrogant about it. Stimulus, TARP, bail outs, the recent forays into the financial markets, the auto industry, etc. would have been unthinkable a few short years ago. No matter what your political bent, the fiscal irresponsibility of squandering monies that we don't have on unnecessary and questionable projects is breathtaking.

So pick which fork you want to take, folks. The one that will allow a corrupt government to lead our country into financial ruin; or the one that will demand that it act in a responsible and transparent way, answering to "We The People" and not the special interests. If you can't get your minds around the specific issues, please just consider the fiscal impact of the out-of-control spending of mind-boggling amounts of money that we don't have, and that our children and grandchildren will have to repay - that is if China doesn't own the country by then.

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Pick up your phones, your pens or your keyboards and tell your elected representatives to exercise the fiscal responsibility that we expect - no, demand - of them. If we truly ran the country, and government worked for us, we would likely fire the whole bunch. Hold that thought.

Gary Griffith

Gardnerville