OPINION:
Last November, “we the people” elected a House of Representatives with a mandate to regain control of the federal deficit. The vast majority of the newly elected representatives promised to reduce federal spending to a sustainable level.
It has become increasingly apparent that we still support spending cuts in principle but that we draw the line at cuts that affect us personally. In other words: Cut his benefits, entitlements and programs but not mine; cut spending that affects them but not us.
If this attitude becomes the direct reason for a failure to return federal spending to a fiscally responsible level or if the cuts enacted so alienate the electorate that the 2012 elections return to office President Obama and a Congress that reverses most of the cuts our nation needs, we will be on the road to economic and societal collapse.
We need a leader in the White House who will make it clear that the choice is not between giving each American everything that was promised in the past and giving every American a lesser version of that dream. In fact, the long- term choice is between that lesser amount and nothing - following an economic collapse.
Unfortunately, our president is an organizer, not a leader, and most Americans do not believe that a collapse of the U.S. economy is possible. In 2012, we must elect as president a strong and patriotic leader who clearly understands that the biggest threat to our national security is the out-of-control deficit. He must make it clear that all citizens will have to accept significant sacrifices if our nation is to return to fiscal sanity. If we do not elect such a person, the decline and fall of the American experiment in self-government will be more than a remote possibility.
ROBERT A. WOLPERT
Fairfax
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