Infinite Wealth - 10-26-08

Much of importance has been mysteriously missing from the national dialogue in recent years.  To me, the most critical element is the lack of a cost-benefits analysis addressing our national priorities. Boring but absolutely essential. Even the wealthiest nation in world history faces financial constraints. To fight a war is to postpone bridge building and child health care. To bail out investment bankers is to cut back on elements of the War on Terror. To purchase a multi-billion dollar fleet of air-to-air refueling tankers may mean delaying steel reinforcement of Humvees. To build up the strategic oil reserve could delay implementation of alternative fuel strategies.  None of this is a judgment on the merits of one choice over another.  It is merely a statement of the obvious – a choice, national or personal, once made and funded, inevitably affects the range of other choices that can be considered.

For some years now, we have seemed to be operating on an assumption that America’s wealth is infinite. America, of course, has no wealth other than that it collects from taxpayers and what it borrows in the hope that taxpayers will repay the debt.  To date I’ve not met a single taxpayer who regards his ability to respond to the needs of the IRS as infinite – thus the requirement for a dialogue.  

Left to their own devices, politicians may or may not make choices responsive to the wishes of the citizenry. Ideology and political expediency seem to be trumping recognized national needs more and more often. Therefore, citizens must explore ways to make their priorities known and felt in Congress and the White House

Never before in history has this been possible in any realistic sense. Now, with the Internet as a tool of information exchange, we are positioned to tell government how we think and feel on all the issues that directly affect us. All that is missing is the government’s desire to hear our voices, and the relatively simple computer program that would collect, tabulate and forward our opinions to Congress and the President. Is there anyone inside the Beltway who believes in participatory democracy enough to listen?