The Obama campaign ran an ad last fall during the presidential election which attempted to portray John McCain as a “big spender”. Many listened as a narrator told them, “McCain's tax plan means another three trillion in debt. His plan to privatize Social Security -- another trillion. Tax credits sent to insurance companies, yet another trillion. So as we borrow from China to fund his spending spree, ask yourself: Can we afford John McCain?”

Isn't it sad that there does not seem to be so much as a hint of embarrassment in the democrat camp that they were able to win the White House by attack ads like the one above that actually described what their own candidate was going to do. In fact, the prospect of being able to “afford John McCain” must look pretty tempting right now. The democrats will take us to three trillion dollars in deficit spending before the end of President Obama’s second year in office. The national debt, now standing at a mere 11.68 trillion dollars, will have pushed its way past 13 trillion by that time. In case you’re wondering, that’s “only” about forty thousand dollars for every person in America, or more like eighty thousand dollars for every taxpayer. At least we have gotten an answer concerning our ability to “borrow from China to fund his spending spree”. So far, so good!

The question of “How much longer can this go on?” seems to be becoming a matter of national concern. Just weeks ago, Washington decided the “Cash for Clunkers” program was such a success (at selling Japanese-made cars, as it turns out), that another 2 billion dollars was needed. So, it was off to the “bank” again for the feds, borrowing yet more money to fund a program which is arguably unwise and unnecessary. That there seems to be no end to it is largely due to the fact that there is, in fact, no end to it! But that’s the catch.

There will someday be an end to this borrowing, and we need to address this. What is going to happen when we, as a nation, must live within our means? The campaign ad was critical of McCain’s ideas on Social Security, but where are the answers from the White House now? With the Social Security Trust Fund filled only with federal IOUs, what will be used to pay retirees what they do, by all rights, have coming to them? How will the military be funded if spending must be cut by a third or more? It would seem reasonable to see times coming when a well-known preacher’s observations about chickens coming home to roost will apply in a way he did not anticipate. And when that happens, what will we do?

Considering the peril we face, it occurs to me that there is possibly a great coalition of Americans waiting to come together. There are many areas of common concerns where, democrat or republican, there can be agreement in calling upon our elected officials to restore a responsible approach to government.

One such area is energy. The recent fall in gas prices has taken this issue off of the national stage, but be assured it will return. The idea of appointing Al Gore to head a rumored “Energy Security Council” is troubling. If there is a more left-wing, anti-growth, anti petroleum loonie on this planet, let them step forward. What is needed is a serious national commitment for energy independence that goes beyond mere rhetoric.

It is not as though we have not been warned. The 1973 oil embargo, the 1991 Gulf War, and the latest huge spike in gas prices all teach the same lesson: Dependence on Middle East petroleum is a recipe for disaster. Is this not an issue that most Americans agree on? It will be vital that we join together in applying pressure to see rapid and significant progress on this front.

Another area to watch closely will be Supreme Court nominations. A case decided recently perfectly illustrates the importance of this subject. In a 5 to 4 decision, the court correctly decided (my opinion) that the Navy can continue to use a specific type of sonar in training its crews. Extremist environmentalist groups had contended the practice must be stopped since, according to them, it ran the risk of causing injury or death to whales. Never mind that discontinuing the practice would run the risk of injury or death to those of us who actually depend upon the military for protection from foreign threats. Forgetting for the moment the task of trying to decide how they found four college educated justices who would side with whales over people, just imagine where we would be if the court had just one more liberal justice! It would have been a 5-4 decision in favor of the big mammals. Surely a great majority of Americans would agree that we need a Supreme Court that places a greater value on the security of Americans than it does on whales.

Any discussion of large things must bring to mind the federal budget. We are now ten trillion dollars in debt, which amounts to a cool 130 grand for each family of four. I have yet to meet a single person who considers that to be good news, much less the prospect of increasing it. And yet that is the outlook if President-elect Obama fulfills his election promises of lowering taxes for practically everyone while increasing spending by hundreds of billions a year.

The excuse might be used that increased spending is called for in tough economic times. But  Mona Charen, in a recent article, quotes former Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau’s testimony before a congressional committee in 1939. "We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot." And Morgenthau was an ally of then president Roosevelt.

Surely we can join together in agreeing that the federal budget must be balanced. Cut spending (And, no, a scalpel won’t do…think “chainsaw”.) or increase taxes, but balance the budget. Leaving this debt for our children and grandchildren to clean up cannot be viewed as an option.

This list can be concluded by mentioning gay marriage. Again, this is a subject upon which a great majority of Americans agree. Other individual’s sex choices are not the issue here, but when it comes to the subject of marriage, we must be unapologetically plain with our stance. No person has a fundamental federal “right” to marriage. It is a privilege granted by the governments who are supposed to represent us. If we extend marriage to include two members of the same gender, then how can we justify limiting it to only two people? Who would we be to tell three people they cannot marry, or a man and a fourteen year old girl, or two men and two women, or…well, you get the point. Enough of this talk of depriving others of their rights. Every person has the identical right to marriage, so long as it is to one person of the opposite sex.

Do you agree with these positions? Then let’s combine our voices. No matter our political affiliations, in these areas we must demand progress be made in the next four years.

Last October, during the third presidential debate, Bob Schieffer asked both candidates about the 08 deficit, characterized by him as “an astounding record high $455 billion.” In his reply, then-Senator Obama had no sympathy for the Bush administration’s attempts (or lack thereof) to balance budgets. He stated, “When President Bush came into office, we had a budget surplus and the national debt was a little over $5 trillion. It has doubled over the last eight years. And we are now looking at a deficit of well over half a trillion dollars.” One could almost have gotten the impression that Obama regarded the national debt to be matter of genuine concern.

However, as they say, “That was then and this is now.” We are now facing the prospect of federal budget deficits that make those of the last administration seem amateurish in comparison. The 2009 deficit is estimated to be $1.75 trillion dollars. If Scheiffer thought Bush’s $455 billion deficit was “astounding”, how would he describe this figure? It seems Mr. Obama was serious when he said of the federal budget in the same debate, “We've got to take this in a new direction, that's what I propose as president.”  Well, mission accomplished! We are told by President Obama that the deficit will be reduced to a mere $533 billion by 2013. He has at least managed to do what Bush never did, which is make a half-trillion dollar deficit seem small. Hopefully, someone will remember to fertilize the money tree.

This deficit - $1.75 trillion dollars – is equal to the entire economic output of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana…for four years! Picture yourself writing a check for $6,000 to cover your part of this deficit. And that’s just for this year. At present, we’re all in for over $35,000 each for the national debt. If you bear in mind that 40% of Americans pay no federal taxes, then the average taxpayer’s share inflates to nearly $60,000. Perhaps we need to send the authors of this plan to Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.

Sadly, if we had no national debt, the budgets of the past several years would have been balanced. In Fiscal Year 2008, the feds spent $412 billion of our money on interest payments to service the national debt (over $1300 for every man, woman, and child in the country), compared to a paltry $15 billion for NASA, $61 billion for education, and $56 billion for the Department of Transportation. Had we not needed to hand over those interest payments, we could have had a balanced budget in 2008, not a budget deficit. You will find the website federalbudget.com to be an enlightening visit.

None of this is to suggest that these budget issues are entirely a republican vs. democrat issue. Neither party has held the line on spending when given the opportunity. The last president to sign a balanced budget was not Ronald Reagan, but Bill Clinton. I don’t know that Senator McCain would be leading us down a different path had he been elected. The truth is, as a people, we tolerate this. We want to keep our pet projects without paying increased taxes. It is a recipe for disaster. It pains me to see my children’s and grandchildren’s futures being so recklessly mortgaged. Frankly, we are stealing their future.

I’d like to offer an alternative. If borrowing this money is such a great idea, why don’t we all “man up” and borrow the money ourselves? Let every adult American take out several thousand dollars in personal loans each to simply give to the government. This approach would not only “stimulate” the economy (supposedly), but future Americans would not be on the hook for our fiscal irresponsibility. Of course, this idea could never gain a foothold. People everywhere would understandably rise up in protest at the mention of such a thing. So, we must face a difficult question. Have we become so comfortable with the idea of letting others pay the bills that we are willing to pass them on to our children?