By Ed Adamczyk/Contributor
Each Friday’s Tonawanda News features commentary from a variety of sources, including me and including contributors to the “Sound Off” column, a phoned-in, what’s-your-complaint sort of offering by readers. While no one will agree with all of it, and much of “Sound Off” seems to be random ranting, a search for a forum when government or politicians don’t seem to be listening, I take note of the “this country is doomed” attitudes some callers provide. I’m beginning to think they may be right.
Part of it is because I’m on the cusp of becoming a senior citizen, a golden-ager, a crusty old fart, name the category, and people of that class have some touchstones when it comes to better days from the past, mistakes made and learned from, observations on those who’ve come after them and are screwing things up, etc. The way the Great Depression affected those who survived it, I grew up assuming the United States was the best at everything, or would be if it only directed its energy and muscle appropriately. This was the place with all the money, all the power, all the ideas, all the innovation, none of the pessimism and no barriers to progress. By extension, since I’m a citizen, that pertained to me as well; whatever potential I had would be welcomed and rewarded.
So the new federal budget is out and ready for approval, and beyond numbers in the trillions (my own checking account perplexes me, so be assured I’m no expert on these matters), a few things stand out:
President Obama’s projections are admittedly optimistic (the state of the union is strong, he said last week), but they include deficits until 2020 that no one considers sustainable. A Tuesday Associated Press article on the topic mentioned the federal government will “have to borrow one-third of what it spends next year as it runs a deficit that would still total some $1.3 trillion.”
The United States is borrowing it largely from China, which has available cash because much of what your home, office, shop floor, closet and workbench contains was manufactured there.
Obama’s chief economic advisor, Lawrence Summers, asked, before he joined the administration, “How long can the world’s biggest borrower remain the world’s biggest power?”
This little citizen is beginning to wonder as well.
One plan is to reduce discretionary spending, after 2011, on everything besides Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and defense. That’s two-thirds of the economy, left untouched.
Then I read about trends in renewable energy, an indicator of who’s getting a handle on a 21st century zeitgeist. Which country manufactures the most wind turbines? Right, China, and they export what they don’t themselves use. According to the New York Times, China had 1.12 million people in the renewable energy business in 2008, and expects to add 100,000 more per year. Like Japan and the automobile business, they’ll be on their second and third and fourth generation of wind and solar power equipment by the time the United States commits itself to playing catch-up.
Suburban school districts are adding Chinese language instruction to their curricula, and I used to joke about better communication with the kids’ future Chinese overlords. I’m not laughing anymore.
Clearly, fewer and cheaper wars would help the Americans’ cause; this country’s blood and treasure could be better dedicated elsewhere. I first heard the phrase “coherent energy policy” during the Nixon administration and am still awaiting one (that’s Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama, 41 years of stalling while the oil producers got rich and the domestic car industry crashed and burned). Less obstruction from certain troglodytes in Congress might help (although American history has long had its share of elected representatives with no view past their own wallets), and on the matter of entitlements, well, I’m no more eager to surrender mine than you are yours, but there is likely wasteful spending that can be rooted out.
I spent the first part of my life with the feeling my country was on the rise, like those rockets I saw on black-and-white televisions, shot into space with optimistic astronauts aboard. Today we’re deeply in debt, lacking clear direction, and competing with the world for resources and markets. Decisions impacting me, once made in Washington, are made by bankers in Shanghai and oil sheiks in Riyadh. But maybe it’s just me; people age 12 should be more optimistic than those my age.
There is plenty about national debt I do not understand, but I can comprehend the feeling that I have a ringside seat at the decline of the United States as a political power in the world. Of course, any 10-year projection I ever devised was totally off the mark; perhaps the president’s is, as well.
Ed Adamczyk is a Kenmore resident whose column appears Fridays in the Tonawanda News. Contact him at EdinKenmore@gmail.com.
