A Momentous Election, a Momentous Time

Whatever happens at Tuesday’s election, we will be entering a momentous time of our country. The next four years will be very critical. The nation is financially overextended, has been on a decades long spending spree and is about to come to grips with the reality of economics. Whoever is elected will likely find his actions restricted by this reality. Whoever wins will also signify a momentous event for our nation.

A victory for Senator McCain would represent a great repudiation of the media elite and would unveil a society in which the will of the people is at great odds with those who consider themselves to be among the intellectual elite. (Most actually have less education than those they look down on but consider themselves superior due to their positions in society.) It would reveal an unspoken conspiracy to overcome the electorate with biased reporting, skewed polling and politically correct pressure. The credibility of the media, already at an all time low, would fall even further. It would then be interesting to see if McCain could deliver on his reputation and promise of being able to reach across the aisle and find a compromise suitable to the majority. He would immediately enter into a battle of wills with what is likely to be a Democratic Senate and House of Representatives. It would also reveal a struggle between his moderate tendencies and the more conservative traits shown in Sara Palin.

If Senator Obama wins the U.S. will have proven itself to have overcome its past segregation and racism but if he proves to be what his critics suggest, the electorate is likely to be very unforgiving of the media elite who allowed their own biases to overcome their sense of professional and constitutional limitations. If he proves to be a healer and is effective, then we will have accomplished something great. If he proves to be a great taxer with socialistic and social engineering tendencies, then we may look back at the malaise of the Jimmy Carter years with its double digit inflation, fuel shortages and high unemployment as being a rather mild time of history. The worst action he could undertake would be to use the “Fairness Doctrine” to suppress opposition and continue some of his campaign’s strong harm tactics against opponents. We could end up with an underground opposition, much like many third world counties.

It is likely though that the next decade will be one of limitations to power because of the law of economics. We are at a position where increased borrowing by the Federal Government will begin to raise costs and squeeze out the credit available to the private industry. This will limit the ability of the government to take on big programs. Increased taxes and spending will likely only result in decreased activity by the private sector and a decrease in revenues. With states and cities already facing bankruptcy and looking to the Federal Government to bail them out, our government officials will likely find themselves in a box they can’t escape.

Future leaders will be faced with a failing Social Security System and cities and counties which can no long afford to pay generous pensions to their workers. This is going to mean a cut in benefits for all facing retirement. The simple fact is that the government has promised more than it can deliver. Just a month after finally reaching a compromise on a budget, the state of California is facing a ten billion dollar deficit for the current year and over 25 billion next year. PERS, the retirement system for government workers, reports it will have to raise the charge to cities, counties and the state from 2 to 4 percent in the next year. Meanwhile we already have the highest tax rate in the nation and the most regulation. Trying to raise revenue through taxes will likely result in the opposite, a decrease in revenue as companies and individuals continue to scale back and leave the state!

On the federal level it will be much the same. Trying to suck more income out of an economy already faltering will result in further cutbacks by industry, more conservative savings and the loss of much industry as firms look to the international scene for alternatives. Protectionism would only bring on the same chain reaction that led to the Great Depression as countries threw up walls to foreign competition and then watched their economies grind to a standstill as retaliation killed their own exports. Despite its short comings, the international economy is the key to the last century’s economic growth.

The best thing we could do for the future is to cut expenses of the government, cut its size, invest in domestic sources of energy and rebuild our infrastructure so that we would be less dependent of foreign influence on our economy and build up the effectiveness of our workers. It would be a hard road as many take cuts in benefits and others loose some of the help they receive from the government but such short term pain may be far superior to the long term decline that could occur if we get ourselves into an economic box that cannot be escaped.

Whoever is President is likely to be tested in ways they never imagined. I hope they are up to it. We need some wisdom and leadership. I hope we don’t get more words and politics. I hope we are up to it too. If we all simply continue to grab for our piece of the pie without looking at the overall picture, then the future may indeed be dark, at least until economic reality forces us to act responsibly.

Father Steven Foppiano