I didn't need to bike 150 miles from Philadelphia to Washington DC to realize that Americans are concerned about the economy. With a nearly 10% unemployment rate, $13 trillion dollar national debt and 80% of all state and local pensions unfunded, there's a lot of pain. Each day it seems the New York Times invokes the Great Depression with modern day Dorothea-Lange pictures of Americans waiting in employment agency lines or protesting Congress' slow decision to extend benefits for those who have been unemployed for over six months.
Uncertainty exists among Americans who pray our economy will bounce back (and hope it's sooner rather than later) and investors who keep the stock market bouncing up and down. No, I didn't need to bike from our nation's first capital to Capitol Hill to realize that American's are anxious for our country to return to the pre-2008 era of easy money. I biked 150 miles to see what Americans would do if they, rather then members of Congress, were sitting before Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid, and had to balance our country's fragile economic recovery with our growing structural budget deficit to restore fiscal sanity to our country.
During my ride, I learned that Americans believe that it is possible for the government to invest in recovery and address our country's national debt problem. The Americans I encountered along the ride felt that our government should address efficiency and reduce waste, fraud and abuse as its first effort to reduce the deficit and then look to reduce discretionary spending. Most believed that our country's defense department's budget is too bloated and supported Secretary Gate's efforts to improve efficiency and cut spending. However, as soon as I asked interviewee's about health care or Social Security, programs which will consume our country's budget in the future if they are not addressed, most were reluctant to make any sacrifices. Few felt that they would put off retirement a few years so that Social Security would provide benefits for their children and grandchildren. Few were willing to accept minimal tax increases now so their children won't inherit massive tax increases later. Instead, people told me that it was the government's responsibility to get our country out of this mess since they got us into it in the beginning.
It's tough to say whether, after two and half grueling days of biking, I felt a little more hopeful than when I started. What I can say is that while Americans are concerned about our country's fiscal future, the President's Debt Commission does not have an easy task. Americans need to be told that, as voters, we are not exempt from the equation. We asked for low taxes and a lot of benefits and our candidates delivered. Getting us out of this mess is going to take a two-part solution. Americans need to realize that we need to make sacrifices and politicians need realize that its time to think about the next generation not the next election.