Happy New Decade...Now Time For Some Difficult Decisions

Wow- I haven't blogged on here in a week...and now we've begun a new decade.

With the Teens underway, the consensus among Americans about the decade we've left behind is something along the lines of good riddance. A disputed presidential election, an act of war on American soil that left 3,000 civilians dead, two costly and lengthy wars abroad, and a financial collapse were just some of the decade's lowlights.

Many of the reflections on the 00's that I've read over the past week looked backward and lamented the trying times that our nation experienced. While it's certainly true that the double zeroes were a challenging decade for the USA, we ought to keep things in perspective. In the 20th century, America became a world power and, by the century's end, the world's only superpower. But along the way, it was rarely smooth sailing for the red, white, and blue. The US fought in a world war in the 1910's, experienced an economic collapse of historic proportions in the 1930's, played a pivotal role in beating back the forces of fascism in the 1940's, fought an unpopular war in the 1960's and 1970's that threatened to tear the nation apart at home, and stared down Soviet Communism during a long, successful battle that required a mixture of military might, diplomatic skill, economic power, and ideological superiority.

Anyone with a grasp of American history can see that while the 00's were by no means a joy ride, they also shouldn't be viewed as the decade from hell that some commentators are making them out to be. Leave my 20th century examples behind for a second and consider that during the 1860's, as a mind-numbingly bloody civil war raged between North and South, it was unclear that there would even BE a United States of America once the conflict ended.

As we move into the 10's, it's far more important and productive for us to look into the future rather than bemoan the past. The fact of the matter is that the time has come for us to make some difficult decisions about the future of America, the role it will play on the world stage, and the size and scope of its government. In short, American citizens will have to choose what sort of country we will become. That is a frightening prospect. But it's also exhilarating.

So why will this decade require that we make difficult decisions about fundamental principles? Simple. The path we've embarked on is not only fiscally irresponsible, it's utterly unsustainable. The size of the federal government, the current spending levels, the deficit and the national debt, the impending insolvency of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the health reform legislation offered by the Democrats...all of this will force us to choose, once and for all, between spending cuts and raising taxes.

For far too many years now, our politicians have repeatedly refused to make these politically unpalatable but necessary decisions. Liberals hide behind their "tax the rich" mantra, despite the fact that the wealthy already pay a substantial amount in taxes...and despite the fact that raising taxes on the top 1 percent or 3 percent or 5 percent simply won't be enough to finance their extravagant agenda anyway, unless they plan to tax the top earners at something like 70%, which would sap the free market of its dynamism and stifle economic growth even further. If liberals want to keep growing government, they'll need to have the political guts to raise ALL of our taxes. No more talk about "tax cuts for 95% of Americans." Let liberal Democrats stand up and say, we expect all Americans to shoulder an increased tax burden so that government can do more. If they win that argument on the merits, then it'll be clear that Americans wish to go the way of the European welfare state.

Conservatives, on the other hand, are willing to talk about cutting spending, but it was abundantly clear that they were unwilling to actually do it during the Bush years. Congress is addicted to pork, and when it comes to reckless spending, Republicans are as guilty as the Democrats. Just as raising taxes across the board is political poison, so too is paring back entitlement programs. Let conservative Republicans campaign on cutting spending and meaningfully reducing the size and scope of government. They'll have to make it clear to the populace that this will be a hard transition for some, involving some dislocation and short-term adversity. But if they win the argument for smaller government on the merits, then it will be obvious that the American people favor a return to the sort of limited government envisioned by the Framers and therefore reject the continued march toward a nanny state.

If this battle over fundamental principles doesn't happen voluntarily, it will happen by necessity. The enormity of our national debt, which continues to grow, threatens American sovereignty and our status as the world's foremost superpower. Let's hope the 2010's are the decade in which politicians from both parties join hands and make a stand. They don't have to agree; in fact, they can't. For the good of America, they NEED to fundamentally disagree this time, and Americans need to make a choice. Alexis de Tocqueville famously distinguished between great parties, which fight over fundamental, first principles, and small parties, which scuffle over less lofty issues and patronage. The United States of America has experienced both in its history- for great parties, think Civil War era; for small parties, think the 1990s (just to give one example of each...there are others.) This decade may be one of great parties...and that might be just what we need.