DEFECIT COMMISSION

Your Commander wants to go on the record that I totally support the findings of the Presidential Debt Commission co-chaired by former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and ex-Senator Alan Simpson (WY-R). Certainly I do not like all the recommendations, but their conclusions cannot be denied as factual and real. The economy and the economic health of the United States are on the brink of a totally unacceptable collapse.

Simpson’s frank tell-it-like-it-is tone certainly is refreshing, and something that has been sorely lacking in the Halls of Congress and our White House for far too many years. We are now paying the penalty for the failure of our political leadership. We are all the victims of accepting the verbage of our politicians. The sad day of reckoning is upon us.

One way or another we will have to accept reductions in benefits we have enjoyed but just cannot afford to continue to be funded at current levels. Any politician that tells us government spending is not in need of critical care immediately is just fooling us. Conditions were not honestly addressed years ago when problems were correctable with less severe remedial action. We can no longer afford to pay for the political transgressions or omissions of honesty, simply because your vote was all they wanted for their selfish re-election. Our government has failed us for far too long.

We cannot run our individual households like the federal government tries to run its affairs. We will be required to face the music for their failures to perform their Oaths of Office. We, the voters, and our elected officials are both to blame for this problem, so we now both must accept the necessary dose of corrective medicine. I do not like the taste of the medicine anymore than you, but it is vitally necessary or we will succumb to an unacceptable conclusion.

Please do not permit your elected representatives to avoid their responsibility in addressing this problem. Demand that they face the hard decisions head on once and for all. Spending must be cut and that includes the cost of government.

COMMANDER GRANGER