The national debt has all Americans on life support. Don’t take my word for it, look at the debt clock: http://www.usdebtclock.org/
It’s clear we can’t depend on our leaders to handle this. They’re too busy worrying about getting or keeping their jobs to worry about the health of our nation. Unkind comment, you say? Yes, I suppose it is, but I’d love to be proven wrong. Unfortunately, the evidence proves otherwise (see above clock).
We Americans–don’t start party nonsense; I don’t want to hear it. We’re Americans and if our country falls, it won’t be a party that pays the price, we all will–are a resourceful bunch. We’re compassionate. When there’s trouble, we’re first in line to help out. Look at our response to aid in 9/11, in Hurricane Katrina, in the tsunami and in pledging aid to Haiti. There are scores of examples where Americans noted a challenge and addressed it. We held concerts, benefits, bake sales and telethons. We collected via corporate donations and millions of personal donations–and we provided much needed resources to address the problems faced.
So now our nation is on life support–we’re crippled in everything, including our own security–and I’m looking around for all those entities and individuals who have both fame and fortune and are capable of responding to the distress call and I’m seeing… nothing. Why is that?
Someone has to pick up the stick. Someone has to say, “Hey, let’s fix our problem so we can live our lives without being worried sick. Let’s do something.”
It’s a big problem. It’s complex. But that doesn’t mean we should sit silently and worry and take that as a license to do nothing.
One thing is clear. No one person is going to fix this. Don’t bother me with who caused it—we all did. Directly or indirectly, it’s every American’s fault. So let’s forget that blame nonsense and focus on the solution.
Let’s start with the power of one. One person, one act. Do one thing to detonate the debt. Inspire one other person to do one thing to detonate the debt.
This year for Christmas, I’m asking in lieu of gifts that my loved ones forget buying me a gift. Send the U.S. Treasury a check instead and designate that it is to be applied to the national debt.
From the Treasury Direct website:
You can make a contribution online either by credit card, checking or savings account at Pay.gov
You can write a check payable to the Bureau of the Public Debt, and in the memo section, notate that it’s a Gift to reduce the Debt Held by the Public. Mail your check to:
Attn Dept G
Bureau of the Public Debt
P. O. Box 2188
Parkersburg, WV 26106-2188
To celebrate my family, I’m making a contribution. I don’t need a new tax. My country needs this. I’ll give what I can.
If others give what they can, we’ll whittle down the debt and demolish it.
I recall the celebrity fundraisers, telethons and concerts. You’ve stood for everything from animals to disease to strangers in foreign lands. Won’t you stand for your own family, your own country?
What about our athletes? Our singers and writers and unions and autoworkers? What about our corporations, those bankers, Wall Street workers? What about getting our kids involved? Car washes, bake sales?
My point is that everyone, every individual and every group has a vested interest in demolishing our debt. Everyone can do something. Everyone should because everyone pays the price for failure to do so and everyone reaps the benefit of success.
Bluntly put, we can’t look to our government to fix this. We have to do what we do best in America: get creative and help ourselves.
America is special and every American knows it. Americans are exceptional and every American knows that too. It is our innovative spirit, our ability to rise from ash and fashion something worthy. Slavery to debt is abolished in such ways. Freedom is embraced in such ways.
Some will say, even if we’re successful, the government will just spend us into oblivion again. My response: Only if we let them. If we require a balanced federal budget, we won’t let them. The key: America will be here to fight that fight.
The bottom line is that if we don’t detonate the debt, we’ll be DOA. What American could possibly want that?
Please, join with me. Together, Americans can do whatever they set their minds and hearts to doing. The government can’t–it considers billions nothing, but we know billions create trillions. Americans live on budgets, they save for what they want, they know how to struggle and strive to thrive. Americans can do this. I believe it, and you should believe it too.
Press the plunger in your own way, as an individual and with your groups, and let’s do what we can to detonate the debt. ❖
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