Sunday, April 24, 2005

Governor Gloom - Remember Him

You may remember a former Colorado Governor, Dick Lamm, who, in 1984, became nationally known as, "Governor Gloom" because of his expousal of the proposition that each of us has a "...duty to die." The remarks were, of course, made in the context of the enormous cost of healthcare (for the terminally ill and elderly), the the ethical dilemma of assisted suicide and euthanasia. No, I really am not revisitiing the Schiavo travesty, but as I was reading a piece by Lamm in this morning's Denver Post, I was reminded of the Lamm event of twenty years ago.

The piece in the Post this morning is, yes, gloomy, and speaks to America's unfunded liabilities amounting to probably $74Trillion, and the federal debt of $7.5Trillion, the burden of which will be passed on to our (collective) children and gradchildren. The piece reads, in part:

While these unfunded liabilities are largely from Social Security and Medicare, every dime of the war in Iraq has been put on our children's credit cards. Every year, we borrow approximately 30 percent of our spending from the future. While George W. Bush is the most fiscally reckless president in U.S. history, he is just the logical extension of the same irresponsible habits developed by both political parties.

We now have "big government" conservatives who also feel free to spend and not to pay. The question in my mind isn't which political party can keep America great, but whether either of them can.

But the greater fault perhaps lies with the overindulged American public. We collectively demand services but don't want to pay for them.

This is probably the third time I've posted on this incredibly immense issue which is chip, chip, chipping away at the integrity, the core structure of what, in the not too distant future, may be looked upon as a great country whose dominance in the world was quite short-lived.

Nope, it ain't those damned queers, Martha, or those evildoer judges who are gonna send us all down the shithole.

Just ask Governor Gloom.

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