I am very concerned about our entire political system, Democrats and Republicans alike.  And I realize the tremendous frustration in America today with unemployment, deficits, health care problems, family financial problems, and the great desire for all this to be solved, and that possibly a change in presidential leadership is the answer.

Well, before we allow our frustrations to escalate into “throwing the baby out with the bath water” in the next election, let’s look at some facts, as Robert Reich (one of the nations leading experts on work and the economy) did in an August 11 article. He suggests the magnitude of problems Obama inherited from the previous eight years of G. W. Bush’s presidency.

“The G.W. Bush era told America there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and led us into a devastating war, turned a $5 trillion projected budget surplus into a $6 trillion deficit;  gave the largest tax cut in generations to the richest Americans in history;  handed out a mountain of corporate welfare to the oil and gas industry, pharmaceutical companies, and military contractors like Halliburton; and turned a blind eye to Wall Street shenanigans that led to the worst financial calamity since the Great Crash of 1929 and then persuaded Congress to bail out the Street with the largest taxpayer-funded giveaway of all time.”

It seems to me that we need to really look carefully at just exactly what political policies are best in the long run; which approaches might just work; what progress, however slow, we have been making with the Obama administration; and seeing with realistic and non-political eyes just how confident we can be that the average American family is going to make wise and prudent choices when certain present government programs are cut and the responsibility comes down to family decisions around the dinner table. 

Sounds intriguing to ‘get government out of our hair,’ but I wonder.   

Bob McClellan,

Polson