We the people of the United States of America are in deep trouble.
We are drowning in personal, business and government debt while many of us are without any or enough work and many of us are living in fear that we will be next in the unemployment line.
We, who can and have the opportunity, are working hard to make a little money as honestly as possible so that we may pay our bills, save for our futures, give to our children and to others in need in countless ways, and have a little freedom to rest and play and enjoy the presence of those we love.
We know that money must be borrowed, and that private and public funds must be invested and spent and taxes restrained in order for our economy to produce the jobs that will compensate us justly with enough to meet all our present and future needs and obligations along with some of our wants and wishes.
We know that we are all in one way or another responsible in some measure for the mess we are in.
We have spent too much for what we do not need and on what destroys us and others.
We have saved too little for our futures and more importantly for the futures of our children, grandchildren and all the committed communities which bless us most.
We have made sport out of politics, creating tribes of patronage and opportunism, pretending to be parties of principles and opportunities.
We have voted based on shallow allegiances rather than just causes, personalities rather than policies, and willful manipulation rather than thoughtful consideration.
We have done all of this and more while waving our flags and sending young men and women to kill and be killed, to maim and be maimed in unjust, unholy and counter-productive wars.
We have carried on with business as usual as if nothing important is happening while ignoring those flag-draped caskets which return with lives full of magnificent potential cut way too short, their children and spouses wounded at unimaginable depths for the rest of their lives.
We have seen and sighed and turned the other way as others come home from the same unjust, unholy and counter-productive wars, limbs truncated or missing, minds invisibly damaged, lives confused, relationships shattered.
We are responsible and we regret with real and deep sorrow how we have done wrong and not done right and how in fear we have turned from and against one another.
We want to turn in a different direction, work harder and smarter, invest and save more deliberately and prudently, spend less impulsively and less frequently and mostly on what we need, and only after saving and investing sufficiently and giving generously to meet the needs of others, spend on what we desire the most that we may rest and play regularly, deeply and freely with those who matter most to us.
We are committed and will strive to deepen and expand this commitment within ourselves and among others to do what is right and resist doing what is wrong so that we all can, may and will live more fully.
But we need help!
We need leaders who serve all the people without regard to power, party, wealth or poverty or any other distinction of personality, background or affiliation.
We need leaders in businesses, charities, not-for-profits, and governments to practice what they preach, obey the law and follow as best they know how the Constitution of the United States of America.
We need judges who will thoughtfully interpret and consistently uphold the law with wisdom and without partiality.
We need a president and a congress who will work together honestly and diligently to find principled and practical compromises to solve our most pressing and oppressing problems without resorting to ineffective, least common denominator policy.
We need federal, state and local governments limited lawfully so they cannot and will not do what they should not do, but sufficiently funded and equipped to do what they need to do, that which we the people as individuals and as members of families and voluntary communities cannot do without the collective power of government of, for and by the people.
We need our government to collect sufficient revenue more wisely and efficiently without overburdening workers, consumers, investors, businesses and retirees with excessive, regressive and confusing taxation.
We need these same governments and the lawmakers, agents, judges and enforcers within them to find and eliminate all fraudulent or wasteful spending, especially on counterproductive, unjust and unholy wars, on corporate or individual welfare for those who do not need it, on agencies and programs that, however well meaning, have proven time and time again their inability to solve the problems they were created to solve, and on any foreign or domestic individual, group, nation or cause which causes hard earned tax dollars to go to waste.
We need these same governments, most especially the federal government, to shift the money saved from reducing or eliminating wasteful government spending equally toward debt reduction and funding of local, state and national projects to maintain, repair, improve, modernize and green our transportation, communication, education, energy and environmental systems of infrastructure.
We need people hired to work in such projects and paid reasonable, livable, and just compensation and benefits for their hard and dignified work.
We need a coalition of generous libertarians and prudent progressives to rise up in political and economic coalition to do for the American people what leaders across the political spectrum for far too many years have failed to do: justly collect sufficient revenues, deeply diminish wasteful spending on violence and counter-productive programs, thoroughly reduce our national debt, and fully fund the necessary structures, systems and jobs for building a peaceful, green, democratic, productive, prosperous, prudent and generous American economy.
We are drowning in personal, business and government debt while many of us are without any or enough work and many of us are living in fear that we will be next in the unemployment line.
We, who can and have the opportunity, are working hard to make a little money as honestly as possible so that we may pay our bills, save for our futures, give to our children and to others in need in countless ways, and have a little freedom to rest and play and enjoy the presence of those we love.
We know that money must be borrowed, and that private and public funds must be invested and spent and taxes restrained in order for our economy to produce the jobs that will compensate us justly with enough to meet all our present and future needs and obligations along with some of our wants and wishes.
We know that we are all in one way or another responsible in some measure for the mess we are in.
We have spent too much for what we do not need and on what destroys us and others.
We have saved too little for our futures and more importantly for the futures of our children, grandchildren and all the committed communities which bless us most.
We have made sport out of politics, creating tribes of patronage and opportunism, pretending to be parties of principles and opportunities.
We have voted based on shallow allegiances rather than just causes, personalities rather than policies, and willful manipulation rather than thoughtful consideration.
We have done all of this and more while waving our flags and sending young men and women to kill and be killed, to maim and be maimed in unjust, unholy and counter-productive wars.
We have carried on with business as usual as if nothing important is happening while ignoring those flag-draped caskets which return with lives full of magnificent potential cut way too short, their children and spouses wounded at unimaginable depths for the rest of their lives.
We have seen and sighed and turned the other way as others come home from the same unjust, unholy and counter-productive wars, limbs truncated or missing, minds invisibly damaged, lives confused, relationships shattered.
We are responsible and we regret with real and deep sorrow how we have done wrong and not done right and how in fear we have turned from and against one another.
We want to turn in a different direction, work harder and smarter, invest and save more deliberately and prudently, spend less impulsively and less frequently and mostly on what we need, and only after saving and investing sufficiently and giving generously to meet the needs of others, spend on what we desire the most that we may rest and play regularly, deeply and freely with those who matter most to us.
We are committed and will strive to deepen and expand this commitment within ourselves and among others to do what is right and resist doing what is wrong so that we all can, may and will live more fully.
But we need help!
We need leaders who serve all the people without regard to power, party, wealth or poverty or any other distinction of personality, background or affiliation.
We need leaders in businesses, charities, not-for-profits, and governments to practice what they preach, obey the law and follow as best they know how the Constitution of the United States of America.
We need judges who will thoughtfully interpret and consistently uphold the law with wisdom and without partiality.
We need a president and a congress who will work together honestly and diligently to find principled and practical compromises to solve our most pressing and oppressing problems without resorting to ineffective, least common denominator policy.
We need federal, state and local governments limited lawfully so they cannot and will not do what they should not do, but sufficiently funded and equipped to do what they need to do, that which we the people as individuals and as members of families and voluntary communities cannot do without the collective power of government of, for and by the people.
We need our government to collect sufficient revenue more wisely and efficiently without overburdening workers, consumers, investors, businesses and retirees with excessive, regressive and confusing taxation.
We need these same governments and the lawmakers, agents, judges and enforcers within them to find and eliminate all fraudulent or wasteful spending, especially on counterproductive, unjust and unholy wars, on corporate or individual welfare for those who do not need it, on agencies and programs that, however well meaning, have proven time and time again their inability to solve the problems they were created to solve, and on any foreign or domestic individual, group, nation or cause which causes hard earned tax dollars to go to waste.
We need these same governments, most especially the federal government, to shift the money saved from reducing or eliminating wasteful government spending equally toward debt reduction and funding of local, state and national projects to maintain, repair, improve, modernize and green our transportation, communication, education, energy and environmental systems of infrastructure.
We need people hired to work in such projects and paid reasonable, livable, and just compensation and benefits for their hard and dignified work.
We need a coalition of generous libertarians and prudent progressives to rise up in political and economic coalition to do for the American people what leaders across the political spectrum for far too many years have failed to do: justly collect sufficient revenues, deeply diminish wasteful spending on violence and counter-productive programs, thoroughly reduce our national debt, and fully fund the necessary structures, systems and jobs for building a peaceful, green, democratic, productive, prosperous, prudent and generous American economy.
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