This country's New Year Resolution should be to take immediate action to get it's financial affairs in order and ensure the future prosperity and viability of the country's balance sheet going forward. All worthy resolutions that produce great results require hard choices, discipline, pain and change.
Getting more of what we have done over the last decades is not what any us want. Forget who is to blame, the USA has serious problems that negatively impact all of us and hopefully we won't wait to hit absolute bottom before we, the people, come together and insist on new direction and real action. The USA, its politicians and its people are spending addicts and have become incapable of producing revenue in excess of what it spends.
Like a drug addict who continues to minimize its problem this country's leaders refuse to take the actions necessary to make this country solvent. Our elected leaders, republicans and democrats alike, are similar to the parents that enable the addict's destructive behavior. Politicians have been denying our financial problems, lying to themselves and others, minimizing the magnitude of the problem, and further enabling the organism to destroy itself rather than make the hard choices. Until we come together as a country and clearly state to our politicians that we are willing to do whatever is necessary to get this country back to viability, like the addict, we will continue the destructive behavior until the country finally hits bottom or destroys itself.
The USA has a multi-trillion dollars debt problem and can no longer afford programs like Medicare and Social Security. We are not even fixing our roads and bridges anymore and the products coming from our education system are embarrassing. We are building more prisons than schools. Elected officials won't confront the hard issues because they are too busy telling the addict what he wants to hear. So let's make it popular and mandatory for our elected leaders to make the hard choices for our country.
Out of control spending is the addiction of our government. Would you give the drug addict more drugs to use? Recovery often requires intervention and all involved including the addict will experience pain, even embarrassment. Put the addict in an environment where the drug is out of reach and then educate him or remove him from the family unit he is destroying. Our elected officials have no experience keeping a budget, are slaves to special interest groups and don't even read the bills they are signing. Agreements for our country's future are based on special interest groups, negotiations and deal making rather than long-term future survival!
The USA 2011 resolution should be to discontinue all spending on programs that do not sustain themselves. When a budget is in trouble the first thing to do is eliminate all spending, regardless of past commitments, unless that expenditure produces excess revenue! This basic business principle is what successful companies have done for the last two years resulting in record stockpiles of cash and improved balance sheets. If the elected officials can't do the right thing, and continue to prove themselves incapable of making the hard decisions to get our country solvent, then let's, us the people, stop them from destroying our future solvency.
The country's resolutions should be to refuse to tolerate the destructive behavior and decision making of all politicians and demand immediate action to get our financial house in order, regardless of the short term pain. Let's make it popular for our leaders to be leaders!
Grant Cardone, NY Times Best Selling Author of If You're Not First, You're Last