Federal debt, passing the buck to next generation.

Dallas Morning News poses a question every week about the issues facing the nation and as a part of the Texas Faith Panel; I have been writing my columns addressing the issues along with at least ten panelists on a regular basis. Here is this week’s question that I have addressed below.

What should America do to keep the federal debt from limiting the future of younger Americans?

We are a nation of ethics and morality and have to set our priorities as to what goes on the chopping block.  We can apply the brakes on federal spending and loosen the revenue stream to reduce the federal debt from being passed on to the younger Americans.

Deficit spending (debt) is an insurance to uplift ourselves from the economic doldrums; it has to balance it out with future surpluses to even out over a long economic cycle.  We have to pump money out of thin air to shake out of the crises. That is how we gave life to our economy and got out of the great depression.  

I support the call from religious leaders that “The Biblical call to stewardship demands that we pass on an economic order in which our children and their children can flourish.   Indeed, the Native Americans consider impact of their actions for seven generations and that wisdom is embedded in every religion with no exception.

Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) described a good deed as an act which benefits others, such as planting a tree that serves future generations of wayfarers with fruit and the shade.  He said, the world is a better place today because of a good legacy bequeathed to humanity by people of all faiths that came before us. We owe it to coming generations to leave the world a little better than we found it, to usher an era of justice and sustainable peace and prosperity.

We cannot sacrifice our long term interests (well being) of our society with short term needs; we cannot cut support systems to the needy.

Morality demands that we make sacrifices, it starts with the ones who don’t live hand to mouth. Let the President, Administration, Senate, Congress and the federal employees take a voluntary pay cut for a few determined years until we find on the path of recovery.  We don’t need a precedent, we set the precedent. 

We must levy excise duty on luxury imports for a period of four years. It will increase the demand for domestic manufacturing and in turn create employment and taxable earnings. The actual taxes received must be earmarked for debt reduction.

We must cut the foreign aid by half; we need to take care of our needs first instead of funding non-essential needs of others.

Lastly reign in our itch to go for wars and intervene injudiciously, indeed it was the war that got us into trouble.

Ross Perot had a great idea to restore dignity of the people by including every one in the nation building. Let the unemployment and welfare checks be earned through community service work, bring our troops back home and ask them to work on infrastructure projects.

 John Kennedy’s words make a lot of sense in this context. Let every American take pride in becoming a participant in doing things for our country, instead of asking our country do things for us.

Link to Dallas Morning News: http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/03/post-94.html

Mike Ghouse is committed to building a cohesive America where no American lives in apprehension of the other. As a speaker and writer he offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. His work is indexed at http://www.mikeghouse.net/