I'm not defending either party. I don't identify or feel I belong to either party. As I've said before, I'm best described as an independent, with strong conservative fiscal principles and equally strong feelings regarding certain domestic and foreign policy issues.

In my post I was trying to demonstrate that both political parties have become more partisan and have increasingly governed with gross irresponsibility over the last 2-3 decades. During that time, both parties were in the majority at different times and both parties used exactly the same arcane rules to pass legislation they desired at various times. Neither party has acted with fiscal conservatism, regardless of what their party platform or daily soundbites say. Comparing all of our elected representatives in recent decades in terms of family finances, they have legislated the country to a level of spending well above our means and using the term of the day "unsustainable". It is now almost impossible that we will ever be able to get our debt to an acceptable level in any reasonable amount of time.

Part of the cause for the behavior of our political leaders lies with the American public. As some have said here, we are a population who demands entitlements. We are a population who somehow believes that we can get something for nothing and not have to work for it. We have elected representatives for our government who have fed our ill-concieved expectations in the interest of prolonging their own electoral longevity. We like entitlements, services and things government can provide, so they give them to us. Everyone likes lower taxes, so they give us them as well. We have lived for at least a decade now by simply borrowing more and more to satisfy our insatiable but unaffordable desires.

Between us and those we elect, we have ruined what was one of the most productive economies in the history of the world. Through greed and avarice, we have badly damaged the productive and innovative capitalist economic system that was so effective in providing Americans with the highest standard of living in the world for several decades. Because life was so good, we became unwilling to work hard all day to earn a day's pay. Why should we, our government or our union would protect us from having to work up a sweat or get dirt under our fingernails.

Think about what our politicians are saying. "Our economy is driven by small businesses, by Main Street", they say. What the heck does that mean? Is our economic future tied to the success of small shopkeepers and service providers? What about all our strong basic industries...steel, automobiles and trucks, computers, building materials, farming and food processing, planes and aerospace? Ooops, none of those employ many Ameericans anymore. Most of that stuff is produced in other countries. Most of that stuff is made by foreign workers. We've become a country of small retailers, restaurant owners, consultants and software writers. Even the busnesses which depend on low-level phone banks have moved that function offshore. The telephone attendants in India or Bangladesh don't speak English very well, but they sure work hard for not too much money.

The jig is up...or nearly up. There is virtually no way that any economist can project that we can grow our economy at a rate that will provide the necessary tax revenues at current rates to come close to repaying the debt we've run up in anything less than a couple of generations. The structure of our debt is increasingly scary. A greater and greater proportion of the amounts we owe are becoming fixed costs, costs that we can't reduce, even if we wanted to. In only a few years, half of our federal expenditures will be interest on the debts we owe.

Those that have pointed out that our birthrate, like the birthrates of other former strong economies will work against us. It is simply an arithmetic impossibility for fewer and fewer younger working Americans to pay for the retirement and healthcare benefits of a growing population of older people.

Our economy has changed. A lot of the old rules that we learned and repeat like a mantra don't work very well anymore. "Our" economy has become a world economy. We have become consumers, not producers. The businesses that make most of the stuff we consume--like food, oil, most natural resources, processed metals, electronics, building materials, automobiles, medicines, etc.--increasingly produce it somewhere outside the U.S., where the wages and benefits they have to pay workers are far less.

The old principle was that if taxes were reduced, the tax savings would "trickle down" through the economy, resulting in increased demand, increased capital spending and increased employment. That's not working anymore. Nowadays, Americans spend the tax savings to buy stuff that more often than not is produced outside the U.S. The tax savings still trickle, but more often than not they wind up employing workers in third world countries. One of those countries is China, the fastest growing economy in the world, and the one which virtually everyone admits will surpass the U.S. in size and productivity in less than ten years.

No, I'm afraid the jig really is up. We got into this position because our political leaders lead us here. And we LET them lead us here. They have all been equally guilty...both parties, all ideaologies, virtually all political leaders in the last two decades share the responsibility for what is happening and what will happen to the United States.

I was deadly serious when I said that we are quickly becoming another Greece. We have a lowered work ethic, higher demands for entitlements and almost complete disregard for the financial results of our collective conduct. But our habits and expectations will change, Like Greece, they will change as the result of the intervention of others. In Greece's case, Germany and France and the other EU countries are going to tell the Greeks how their lifestyle and standard of living will change. In our case, it will be China and India who will be telling us how we're going to have to change our lifestyle and expectations in order to repay the debts we owe them. They will have no concern for the effect on Americans as individuals or on the U.S. and it's values in the world of nations.

We are well along losing our position as an economic and political leader in the world, as well as frittering away the lifestyle which future generations of Americans will enjoy.

And our political leaders--those we chose to represent us because we believed what they said, what they promised, and the mud they slung at thier political opponents in their own self-interest. Shame on us. If we don't accept the shame now, we'll surely feel it from wherever we are when our future generations realize how our conduct has changed their lives.