Lawrence J.

Haas

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October 27, 2008

What the President-Elect Should Say (But Probably Won’t)

My fellow Americans:

I am humbled by yesterday’s results. I pledge to do all I can to justify your faith in me, and to renew it time and again.

But let us be clear: We face challenges that are too large for one person, even a president, to address alone. They demand a response by each of us. And so, I ask you to join with me to renew our purpose as a people, to rebuild our economy, to refocus our foreign policy and to restore our confidence that we can build a bright future for those who come after us.

One challenge stands at the center of all others. It is the one that we must address if we hope to remain the world’s preeminent economic and military power. That is the challenge of debt.

To put it simply, we are living beyond our means. We are consuming too much and saving too little. We are borrowing huge sums from abroad, much of it from sources that do not have our best interests at heart. We are passing the costs of our profligacy to our children and grandchildren, who will have to bear this burden while they try to make their own way in the world.

We are living beyond our means in two ways. First – as individuals. Americans used to save lots of money for their futures. Today, we hardly save at all. Some of us can’t because we live paycheck to paycheck. But many of us who can are just choosing not to do so.

Second – our government. In Washington, we spend far more than we collect in revenues, and the difference between the two is our yearly deficit. It is big and, unless we change course, it will get much, much bigger.

Unfortunately, we cannot fix our deficit simply by cutting waste from our government – though I will look at every department and cut waste wherever I find it. The deficit is bigger than that. It reflects the mismatch between what we expect from our government and what we are willing to pay for.

Those Americans at the top of the income spectrum can afford to pay more in taxes. They paid higher tax rates in the 1990s, they have prospered immensely in recent years, and I will ask Congress to raise taxes on them to help us close our budget gap.

Having said that, we cannot fix our deficit problem merely by raising taxes. The deficit is too big, and it will get bigger unless we address the forces that are fueling it on the spending side.

Our big public retirement and health programs – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – are growing far faster than the rest of government. Forty years ago, those programs consumed less than a fifth of all federal spending. Today, they consume more than two fifths.

These programs will grow even faster in the future. As the baby boom generation retires, millions more Americans will become eligible for them. And as health care costs continue to rise faster than general inflation, Medicare and Medicaid will grow even more.

The more that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid grow, the more they will leave no room for our government to do anything else – from educating our children, to protecting our environment, to keeping our streets safe, even to providing for our national security.

Right now, of course, my first priority must be to restore our economy over the short term. I will work with Congress to end the suffering of millions of Americans and put us back on the road to recovery.

Once we do that, however, I will ask two things of the American people.

First, I will ask that Americans take greater charge of their futures by saving more. Join your company’s retirement plan if you have not done so. Take full advantage of the savings incentives in our tax code.

Second, I will ask Americans to recognize the need to reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. While I will not propose changes in benefits to current retirees, I will propose changes that will reduce the benefits that future retirees will enjoy.

Make no mistake – I will propose real cuts that will affect millions of Americans. But I trust the American people. I believe that, once you understand the trade-offs, you will agree that we simply must act.

My fellow Americans: It is well past time that we do the right thing, that we start to act responsibly, and that we balance our wants with our willingness to pay for them. I will ask that we do nothing less.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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