OUR NATIONAL DEBT

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Friday, September 21, 2012

The Doctor and the Illusionist

By Rafael Elias

When I am sick, I can go to the doctor.
When I want to be entertained, I can go to the circus to watch an illusionist, a clown, or a singer.
A doctor is a person that after a serious and detailed analysis, gives you a diagnosis and guides you through the process of healing and well being. We place our trust on our doctor because we know that he has the knowledge and the experience to tackle our health issues and offer us sound and effective solutions. We know about his talents and are confident that he will use them to the best of his ability to help us get well. We feel safe in the able hands of a doctor.
An illusionist is an entertainer whose livelihood is based on make-believe. He presents us with amazing magic tricks that challenge reality and make us see the world in a fantastic yet unrealistic way. He can deliver wonderful and highly entertaining performances, but deep inside we know that it is all an illusion, that there really is no magic, that it is all a well-honed trick. We have fun during the performance of an illusionist.
Well, it just so happens that our great nation is ill.
The country is suffering from a tumor that keeps growing, relentlessly and faster than ever before. The United States is sick with $16 trillion in debt and living through difficult and painful times with more than 23 million human tragedies in each person that remains unemployed or is struggling to find a job. Our nation is ailing with one in six Americans living in poverty and a higher number of people added to the food stamps program than those looking for work. The country is ailing with the lowest work participation rate in fifty years and the longest bout of unemployment since the Great Depression.
The disease has been getting worse over time. The bug of above-8% unemployment has been infecting our nation for more than 43 months despite the bad medicine and the snake oil that someone promised us would cure the illness. Despite a $5 trillion potion added to the national debt, almost four people are leaving the workforce for each person finding a job.
When these illnesses started, a majority in the country chose to stay away from the doctor believing that a few magic tricks would make us all feel better and with that we would recover.
Today our wonderful nation is sicker than ever. The illusionist’s mismanagement of our ailments has made the disease worse, stronger, and it is spreading. While four years ago the country was in the hospital, the illusionist now has it in intensive care. We needed a doctor then, but we need a doctor even more now.
The state of the nation is dire, make no mistake about it.
The debt keeps growing to levels when soon it will become unmanageable, especially with the “fiscal cliff” just a few months away and further ratings downgrades looming. The richest and most powerful nation the world has ever known is now home to 23 million people worrying about what to do to cover their next rent payment, their electricity bill, or to buy the most essential groceries. 47 million Americans are living and suffering the contradiction of being poor in the wealthiest of nations. Many of them are children for whom chance and opportunity seems more distant every day.
We have the illusionist showing us the same old antics with the same old sidekicks and the same old punch lines. The illusionist is still giving us a show with smoke and mirrors and selling us a world of make-believe, just as he did four years ago. The illusionist is keeping us distracted because he knows that if we stand up and leave to visit the doctor, he will lose his show and will not have the spotlight anymore. The illusionist is thinking about himself and still believes that he can seduce us with a flashier trick or a brighter smile.
But the nation is very ill.
We need to stand up and leave the circus.
We need to go to the doctor. The doctor that has already assessed the situation and that has a diagnosis and a truly effective treatment.
We need his experience and his knowledge to make us feel better, get better, to heal and to recover.
It is clear that Mitt Romney is the doctor and Barack Obama is the illusionist.
We need Mitt Romney to preside over the country’s recovery by implementing policies that will create those sorely needed jobs, that will put us on a path to a balanced budget, that will make North America energy independent, and that will have enough regulations to guarantee the orderly development of business but not so many that will tie up the hands of the job providers.
We need Mitt Romney to cure the country’s weakening stance in the international arena; a resolute leader that our allies will trust and respect and who will stand up to our foes unequivocally and asserting America’s exceptionalism.
We need Mitt Romney to restore the American ideals and values; the American pride, and the American leading role in the world. AnAmerica with a prosperous society that guarantees equal opportunity and trusts its people to achieve results as their freedoms and liberties allow each person.
The time for smoke and mirrors is gone; we cannot let a “feel-good” moment cloud our view and make us lose sight of the true malady that is infecting the nation and advancing like a malignant tumor.
It is time to acknowledge that we need, that our country needs a doctor, a specialist, a person that knows and really can solve this very serious illness.
We need Mitt Romney.
Because at the end of the day, we can always find an entertainer on Letterman or on The View.
But we just cannot afford to let our country get any sicker. We need a cure, a serious treatment. And President Mitt Romney is the person that can deliver it.
There is nothing wrong with liking an illusionist.
But right now we need a doctor.


See more of Rafael Elias at Political Analysis & Economic Studies (PAnEcS) here ...................................

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