Editorial
Mavericks don’t whine
Once upon a time in America, when you pulled yourself up by the bootstraps, you did it without Uncle Sam providing the boot, the straps or the push. Last week, when former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm said America has become a nation o
Once upon a time in America, when you pulled yourself up by the bootstraps, you did it without Uncle Sam providing the boot, the straps or the push. Last week, when former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm said America has become a nation of “whiners,” his bluntness surprised many.
When Gramm made the now infamous remark, he was discussing the nation’s economic health as an advisor to U.S. Sen. John McCain’s campaign. As bad as things may seem, we are not in a recession. Granted, gas prices have gone through the roof and food prices have followed, but Economics 101 defines a recession as two straight quarters of negative growth in the gross domestic product. Despite all the financial challenges the average American has had to deal with lately, the country produced a growth rate of nearly 1 percent last quarter.
Not surprisingly, Gramm’s words were taken out of context by reporters, but these main-streamers can’t help themselves when there is a new Democrat messiah vying for residency on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Even the great GOP hope, John McCain, quickly covered his tracks by saying, “Phil Gramm doesn’t speak for me, I speak for me.” They do wear boots in Arizona, don’t they? The maverick sounds as if he got his pair stuck in a pile of presidential expediency.
Deep down at parties throughout the Beltway where the glasses are crystal and the talk hushed, they wonder privately if Gramm is right. Has the United States of America, on some hedonistic level, become a country of whiners? Does truth produce such whining?
“I can’t pay my mortgage on my McMansion, so what’s Uncle Sam going to do for me? I can’t afford to fill up my SUV’s gas tank, when’s the government going to help me? I live in a flood zone without flood insurance and a hurricane is coming, what’s the president going to do for me? I don’t have health insurance, so Washington needs to provide it for me. I can’t afford to send my kids to college, so the feds should grant some form of scholarships for my kids.”
This is socialism — liberal nirvana — and a fiasco at best. Ronald Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
Whose fault is it when we borrow too much? Is it the government, or the reflection in the mirror? Perhaps some of us should be better stewards of our treasure. Why must the 90 percent who pay their bills pay the way for the 10 percent who don’t? America has gone from rugged individualism to “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” Perhaps whiner is a compliment.
There was a time when Americans were confronted by obstacles and paved them over. Today, we simply adjust. A small cadre of terrorists attacked us on 9/11, completely outwitting our defenses, and we have yet to fill in the hole they made. As Daniel Henninger wrote last week in “The Wall Street Journal,” “… it is arguably the greatest political and bureaucratic fiasco in the history of the world. Remember the line about how if we don’t rebuild the towers ‘terrorists will win’? The terrorists will be dead of old age before this project is finished.”
Through it all however, we still maintain the world’s highest standard of living. A recent U.N. study concluded that 800 million to 1 billion people could face starvation thanks to rising food prices. That’s nearly one in six of us. Still whining that America is keeping you down? Even our very poor live better than half the people around the world. We see the cup as half empty rather than half full. Most of us have roofs over our heads that we can afford to live under and many of us have jobs that pay a living wage. And despite the price of gas, we still drive to work and do it alone.
Does the price of gas create some financial hardship? Yes, but not enough to keep us down. We may have cut back a bit, but we still manage to find the time, energy and money to keep us rolling. Whining only helps if you are running for public office.
We won’t tap our nation’s energy sources. Rather, we send our hard-earned money to our avowed enemies while putting our troops in harm’s way because liberal politicians don’t want us to use our own domestic supply of energy.
We are labeled cold-hearted and cruel if we expect self-reliance from ourselves and others, and are considered crazy for believing that hardship is not only a part of life, but desirable to the extent that it forges the determination of a person to not only survive but thrive.
After another two additional years of a Democratic Congress combined with the first two years of an Obama presidency, these times will be the “good old days.”
Is there anyone running for office that has the chutzpah to speak the uncomfortable truths that we collectively need to hear, while challenging us at the same time? Such courage would be a welcomed relief — boots or no boots — a maverick for the 21st century.
(Maresca, a freelance writer, writes Talking Points for each Sunday edition)
When Gramm made the now infamous remark, he was discussing the nation’s economic health as an advisor to U.S. Sen. John McCain’s campaign. As bad as things may seem, we are not in a recession. Granted, gas prices have gone through the roof and food prices have followed, but Economics 101 defines a recession as two straight quarters of negative growth in the gross domestic product. Despite all the financial challenges the average American has had to deal with lately, the country produced a growth rate of nearly 1 percent last quarter.
Not surprisingly, Gramm’s words were taken out of context by reporters, but these main-streamers can’t help themselves when there is a new Democrat messiah vying for residency on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Even the great GOP hope, John McCain, quickly covered his tracks by saying, “Phil Gramm doesn’t speak for me, I speak for me.” They do wear boots in Arizona, don’t they? The maverick sounds as if he got his pair stuck in a pile of presidential expediency.
Deep down at parties throughout the Beltway where the glasses are crystal and the talk hushed, they wonder privately if Gramm is right. Has the United States of America, on some hedonistic level, become a country of whiners? Does truth produce such whining?
“I can’t pay my mortgage on my McMansion, so what’s Uncle Sam going to do for me? I can’t afford to fill up my SUV’s gas tank, when’s the government going to help me? I live in a flood zone without flood insurance and a hurricane is coming, what’s the president going to do for me? I don’t have health insurance, so Washington needs to provide it for me. I can’t afford to send my kids to college, so the feds should grant some form of scholarships for my kids.”
This is socialism — liberal nirvana — and a fiasco at best. Ronald Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
Whose fault is it when we borrow too much? Is it the government, or the reflection in the mirror? Perhaps some of us should be better stewards of our treasure. Why must the 90 percent who pay their bills pay the way for the 10 percent who don’t? America has gone from rugged individualism to “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” Perhaps whiner is a compliment.
There was a time when Americans were confronted by obstacles and paved them over. Today, we simply adjust. A small cadre of terrorists attacked us on 9/11, completely outwitting our defenses, and we have yet to fill in the hole they made. As Daniel Henninger wrote last week in “The Wall Street Journal,” “… it is arguably the greatest political and bureaucratic fiasco in the history of the world. Remember the line about how if we don’t rebuild the towers ‘terrorists will win’? The terrorists will be dead of old age before this project is finished.”
Through it all however, we still maintain the world’s highest standard of living. A recent U.N. study concluded that 800 million to 1 billion people could face starvation thanks to rising food prices. That’s nearly one in six of us. Still whining that America is keeping you down? Even our very poor live better than half the people around the world. We see the cup as half empty rather than half full. Most of us have roofs over our heads that we can afford to live under and many of us have jobs that pay a living wage. And despite the price of gas, we still drive to work and do it alone.
Does the price of gas create some financial hardship? Yes, but not enough to keep us down. We may have cut back a bit, but we still manage to find the time, energy and money to keep us rolling. Whining only helps if you are running for public office.
We won’t tap our nation’s energy sources. Rather, we send our hard-earned money to our avowed enemies while putting our troops in harm’s way because liberal politicians don’t want us to use our own domestic supply of energy.
We are labeled cold-hearted and cruel if we expect self-reliance from ourselves and others, and are considered crazy for believing that hardship is not only a part of life, but desirable to the extent that it forges the determination of a person to not only survive but thrive.
After another two additional years of a Democratic Congress combined with the first two years of an Obama presidency, these times will be the “good old days.”
Is there anyone running for office that has the chutzpah to speak the uncomfortable truths that we collectively need to hear, while challenging us at the same time? Such courage would be a welcomed relief — boots or no boots — a maverick for the 21st century.
(Maresca, a freelance writer, writes Talking Points for each Sunday edition)
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