America is moving towards disaster. Greece, which currently is in debt at 120% of its GDP, is set to collapse. We are at 101% and rising. Tough decisions must be made.
This is where traditional American, old school liberalism needs to reassert itself. American liberalism was not anti-industrial. As a matter of fact, they cringed at radical environmentalist proposals in the 1960s that feel far short of the Lisa Jackson EPA. They understood that labor needed industry in a basic way, but also needed help. Labor needed prosperous industry to employ workers and pay for pension and social programs.
At some point, liberals joined with leftists and therein lies the current problems.
Liberals understand that business needs to profit so that it can grow, employ more people, and pay its taxes. The Left sees business as a milk cow to be squeezed as much as possible, then whipped when it can provide no more milk.
The fact is that, given the knowledge that the United States can lead the world in energy production, including oil, we can pay for our social welfare system. We need to make tough decisions about federal spending on such things as education and we definitely need to cut waste. But, in reality, if we unleash American energy and manufacturing from its regulatory shackles, the resulting economic growth can pay for social welfare IF we do not start tacking on a whole bunch of new programs.
I don't mean gutting all environmental and labor laws. But we need to recognize that a balance must exist. We must stop discouraging development and begin encouraging growth.
To do so, the liberals need to reject the left and support energy and manufacturing growth. They need to stop bashing the productive simply because they exist and realize that if they are doing better, so is labor and so are the tax revenues that fund the programs that liberals love.
In other words, you cannot have it both ways. We cannot expand social benefits and discourage manufacturing and energy production at the same time.
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