America's Debt Downgrade

We the people need to take responsibility for the mess WE are making.

The downgrade is a consequence of our actions. America started down a spending spree many years ago, buying things we don’t need while necessities fall by the wayside. Then we expect the government to provide the necessities. The president said it best, “many people don’t like government spending, but they like the things the government buys”. We see it every day; families with all the amenities of the “good life” but can’t buy medicine when the baby gets sick. Don’t worry about that baby, momma will just high-tail it to the hospital with her gold card.

Families work every day to add bills to their ledger without saving a penny, so when the job is gone there is no safety net. Tragedy hits in the form of a natural disaster and millions of people can’t afford to rebuild or relocate then expect the government to foot the bill. Any talk of raising taxes is seen as blasphemy. America we made this mess and maybe we need a limit on the amount of money that we can borrow.

Unfortunately, that limit is coming the hard way. Instead of taking steps to adjust and realize that we are all connected; if one segment of the country fails then the entire country is failing. Nothing beats a failure but a try. We have a golden opportunity to rise to the occasion and clean up our mess. Instead of picking up the cleaning supplies, everyone has retreated to his/her perspective corner to point fingers, but we all know what momma said about pointing fingers: there are 3 pointing back at you.

America’s financial crisis is your fault and it is all my fault. Maybe the government shouldn’t have offered “sub-prime” mortgages, but we the people didn’t have to buy them knowing we didn’t have the money to afford them. Maybe the government shouldn’t have entered into a war, but we the people didn’t have to go. I accepted several Pell Grants for my undergraduate education and over 7 years later I have yet to find a job that will provide enough money for me to replenish the piggy. If we the people still haven’t found a job that provides enough money to pay enough taxes to send to the government that will give the next high school graduate a chance to go to school, where do we expect the money to come from? For years we have all known that an increasing population means that at some point there will be a lot senior citizens; more senior citizens, means more people will need social security at the same time. So while those old people are young they refuse to increase their taxes; they don’t want to put any extra money in the piggy. Where are they expecting this extra money to come from? I could name a few more examples, but I won’t.

Let’s all stop pointing fingers and figure out what we the people can do heal our country’s finances. We can’t expect government to do alone and more importantly, government can’t do it on their own. Let’s stop being selfish and accusatory. Let’s start giving to the country so the country will be better equipped to give to her children.