The Debt-Paying Generation Has Arrived

In the near future, The Heritage Foundation’s Bill Beach and I will officially introduce the soon-to-be-important term “The Debt-Paying Generation,” (DPG) a term that all Americans should become familiar with. It is the financial future of America, and not a pretty one at that.

What is the DPG? It is those Americans who are presently between 5 and 30, and will be hardest hit from childhood through death by the debt irresponsibility in Washington. According to calculations broken down from Census Bureau data, the DPG is approximately 35% of the total American population, and currently stands at 108,670,000. Given expected life spans- nearly 80 years old on average, and having increased an average of three years since 1990- it is not impossible to believe that the DPG will be the longest-lived generation in American history.

Why is this age group being named the “Debt-Paying Generation?” Well, primarily because this generation will almost certainly have to pay down most of our national debt through higher taxes, which almost certainly will relegate them to the status of being  the first generation of Americans to live a worse life than its immediate predecessors. Additionally, to rub salt in the wound, the big three entitlement programs—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—will have to be cut and, thus, will pay less to the Debt Paying Generation than the Boomers.

In short, to summarize an upcoming Heritage Foundation paper on the subject, a huge population of Americans will be financially burdened, and their quality of lives diminished, because of errors and dereliction of duty by Members of Congress and presidents in both parties. (Full disclosure: I worked for two months at Heritage on said paper.)

When I interviewed Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) for this site, I asked her about the DPG. She expounded upon how much debt is being added by the Democrats, and how it is demoralizing to young people. According to Bachmann,

I will tell you, anywhere I go to speak, I ask that question. “Do you believe you live better than your parents?” Almost everyone in the audience puts their hand up. I ask them, “do you think your children will live better than you financially?” Virtually no one puts their hands up. I doubt in the last 234 years, if you ask that question of any generation, that they would think that their children would not be better off than they are; I just don’t think that you would have gotten that response. That’s really what is frightening today, because we’ve always been a country that’s been about forward- looking people, and growth. And this is one of the first times when Americans look into the future, and they see diminished way of life, and they see decline.

It is not only Democrats, of course, who are at fault. Republicans voted in unpaid-for Medicare legislation; tax cuts that added to the debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office; and launched a War on Terror that, according to the Congressional Research Service, had cost over $900 billion as of September 2009. Additionally, few Republicans are willing to address our overall defense spending, which increased between 2001 and 2008 by over 90%, not including inflation. However, the real problem is the unwillingness of both parties to address our growing entitlements which, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), need to be cut by 12% of GDP by 2015 in order to keep the debt manageable. (This equals just over $400 billion in annual cuts at the federal level, in 2012 dollars.) In absence of this courage, of course, tax hikes (or “revenues,” in the election-year language of Democrats) will be necessary, and the level of taxation will just devastate the DPG.

Unfortunately, I do not see the political will in Congress necessary to make the changes the IMF recommended. From the Beach/Siggins essay:

The IMF recommendations would consist of Congress eliminating, in 2012 dollars:

• 57% of defense; or, if Congress keeps the full defense budget,
• Over twice the interest payments for next year; or, for a third option,
• Over 30% more than the president’s entire proposed Medicaid budget.

Each of these would have to happen every year until 2015. Of course, Congress could simply eliminate the entire discretionary budget; all of Social Security; and two-thirds of the interest payments for FY 2011  (well, except that not paying the debt’s interest would be to default on the debt itself) to reach the same total cuts this year, and leave the budget in other years untouched.

Medicare and Medicaid are necessarily the biggest concern of budget hawks, especially those who look decades into America’s financial future. Not far behind, however is Social Security. I recently conducted an interview with James Agresti, the founder of Just Facts, a New Jersey-based think tank, about Social Security and its impact on the National Debt. James- who regularly updates the burden of the national debt on Americans on his website- informed me that the Social Security Administration (SSA) may be misrepresenting the solvency of Social Security. According to James,

[I]n 2001, the Social Security Administration projected the trust fund balance would reach $2.54 trillion by the end of 2007. It actually reached $2.24 trillion- 13 percent lower than projected. Yet, if you compare the projections from the 2001 report and the 2008 report, they’re more optimistic in the 2008 report than in the 2001 report. So the financial condition of the Social Security program is worse than they projected…but yet they are saying it’s going to be better in the future. So in 2001 they were saying, [with] expected annual deficit in 2075, we’d have to increase Social Security taxes by about 49 percent to cover that deficit. In 2008, they said we’ll only have to increase taxes by 32 percent.

On April 15, The Center for American Progress noted that in President Obama’s proposed Fiscal Year 2011 budget, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid add up to 41.5% of the federal budget. That is expected to grow astronomically over the next 70 years, under current budget proposals and with Congress’ current intestinal fortitude. Unfortunately, it won’t be these politicians who suffer- it will be their kids and grandchildren. To paraphrase a columnist from the Center for American Progress in The Washington Post some weeks ago, we need a generation of politicians who don’t care about being re-elected, and will thus make the tough choices. Hopefully, the American people vote in such politicians this fall, and in 2012, to prevent America from having its own Greek Tragedy, riots and all.

Interview With Rep. Michele Bachmann

(You can grab the audio of the interview here via “Right-click… Save as…”.  Or hover your mouse over the speaker icon to listen to the interview as streaming audio. -nick)

Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was kind enough to give thelobbyist.net a few minutes of her time last week to talk about the national debt and how if Congress trusts the American people, the so-called Debt-Paying Generation (those young Americans whose futures will be crushed by the tsunami of debt the nation faces) will be able to live the American Dream and not be forced to live a life of less quality than their parents.

Representative Bachmann is the Republican representative of the 6th District of Minnesota. She has represented her constituents since 2007, and has been a conservative leader in everything from government transparency to health care reform to reversing course on the size and scope of the federal government.

Dustin Siggins: So you and I met, briefly, Representative, when you were on the Laura Ingraham Show back in March…

Michele Bachmann: Mm-hm, isn’t she great?

DS: Oh she’s awesome; she’s a riot.

MB: She is such a talent.

DS: I really liked when she was on Bill O’Reilly a couple of weeks ago, and they were talking about blaming Napolitano- I don’t know if you saw it?

MB: I didn’t.

DS: They were debating and Bill O’Reilly decided that he wasn’t going to blame Napolitano for the BP response for the oil spill. And he was trying to play the middle road, and so Ingraham just went crazy on him and then picked up his cup of water from behind where he was sitting and went, “He is drinking the Kool-Aid!”

MB: Oh! (laughter) She is so creative. Well you know the great thing is, he has a tremendous audience, and a lot of interests, and he tries very hard, I think…I think he is really trying to be fair and balanced and trying to get both sides or both perspectives. And obviously he has been very successful for a long period of time. But people really do love Laura and I think that her stock is only going to continue to soar.

DS: Oh I have to agree with you. There’s no way, and especially with what’s going on here in DC, there’s no way any conservative’s stock is going to tumble in the next two to four years.

MB: Yeah.

DS: Um, so I was talking to Dave, whom I met a couple of weeks ago, and I am currently at the Heritage Foundation working on the Debt Paying Generation project…

MB: Oh good so you’re working with Bill Beach!

DS: Exactly.  According to Mr. Beach you are a ‘huge fan.’

MB: I am a huge fan! This is the issue, I told Bill, that I really want to hit on because I think that young people’s ears are starting to perk up on their future, what their future is going to be like. And I think that it’s a tremendous shock for a lot of young people to find out that their standard of living could be demonstrably lowered beyond what their parents had. And even though people may hear that in the abstract, especially for younger people, it’s hard to believe that it could be true or that it could be translated into a diminishing reality going forward, and I think it’s important for us to make that case and I think it will be easier, then, for us to talk about positive solutions to be able to dig our way out so that we can have a way forward. Because, there is, it isn’t something where we have to give up and realize that we have to consign ourselves, especially the young debt-paying generation, to a future of less. We can have a better future, but what it means is people in my generation are going to have to make alterations as well.  We can’t let the government try to be the answer to every problem.

DS: Your generation, 31,32?

MB: That’s right. (laughter) No actually I love getting older, to be honest with you. I’m 54 years old and I told my husband that I love getting older so it doesn’t bother me at all.

DS: Interesting. Well I’m 24 and look 20, or 19 and 18; so I wouldn’t mind looking a little older, but-

MB: Ahh, well I’m sure, well your…It’ll come sooner than what you think.

DS: Well hopefully- I think the grey hair would help make me look distinguished.

MB: Yes, undoubtedly. Get a pair of glasses- that will help.

DS: I’ve had glasses since I was one and a half and it hasn’t helped (laughter) Well anyway, a little side-tracked. Regarding the debt paying of this generation, I mean obviously the democrats aren’t going to pass a budget in the house. Rep. Hoyer just stated that yesterday, correct?”

MB: That’s right.

DS: Why are they not passing a budget? Are they scared that American will look and say “oh wow, they made it worse than the Republicans did?”

MB: Well, it’s a dereliction of duty and it’s also an admission that they can’t govern. They had made the comment about Republicans passing budgets and I think now what is good for the goose is good for the gander. I think they’re going to have to live by their own statements. If they make an admission that they can’t pass a budget when they own the white house, when they own the senate, and when they own the house, they are making an admission that they cant govern. And frankly, they are digging a hole for themselves…that they hole that they dug for themselves is embarrassing. The debt and the taxing…the taxes that result from this out of control debt will be one that will mean fewer jobs will be created in the private sector. You have to have a growth economy to create jobs and we saw that there were some 40,000 jobs that were created last month, that is not going to get us anywhere. Especially for the debt paying generation, there is certainly more than 41,000 people who graduated from college last year. Those recent college graduates and those individuals that have left high school and chose not to go onto college, they are looking for employment; and unfortunately, under President Obama’s policies and Speaker Pelosi’s policies…their policies are not inducing entrepreneurs to grow and create jobs. Without private job creation, there can be no healthy public sector either. And so, they are making some very foolish decisions that have long term consequences and they bode ill for the debt paying generation.”

DS: The Center for American Progress did a study- well I guess they called it an analysis, I wouldn’t call it an analysis myself- but they cited several polls showing that the most popular thing for America is to cut the budget of Foreign Aid which is two percent of the budget that President Obama proposed and yet older Americans seem to like Social Security and seem to like Medicare, how do we convince people in my age bracket that we have to get rid of these programs, or at least reform them severely, as President Bush tried to do in 2005. How do we convince people this is best- that they’re going to have to suffer a little bit for the long-term benefit of the country?

MB: Well, I think the best way we can do that is to make the case to people that these programs are going to collapse of their own accord- no one will benefit from that. We don’t want to see senior citizens put in a situation where they’re dependent on either Medicare or Social Security, and one day when they go to their mailbox, they open it up, and there’s no check there because these programs have collapsed because we’re actually bankrupt. That’s why we need to do the responsible thing and make these programs work for the people they were intended to benefit. And we can do that- we could do that sitting down with a magnifying glass and a pencil, and we could make adjustments so that we can actually save these programs for the people who really, truly need them and who truly depend on them, and then for the Debt-Paying Generation we want to make sure going forward that we have alternatives for them so that they can have a secure retirement and deal with health care in a more rational level.

Government takeover of health care has been the Obama way and the Obama solution, and it isn’t that I think President Obama is an evil, negative person- I think he just simply, simply has it wrong. I think he’s simply wrong about the government takeover of health care, and a person can’t point to one jurisdiction or area where the government takeover of health care has actually improved healthcare for people, or made it more inexpensive, because adding the price of bureaucracy to a product doesn’t make a product cheaper, it makes it more expensive and more difficult to obtain- and I think Americans intuitively know that will be our future going forward.

This is why I think, when it comes to health care, which is a new entitlement program, that’s why I think we have a real, and realistic, chance, of actually repealing the bill, and I was the first Member of Congress to issue a full-scale repeal of the bill, and ObamaCare, and it is very popular, as a measure, and we’re looking at about 2/3 of the American people hoping Congress will have a repeal. If you have 2/3 of the American people, wanting to repeal the president’s signature achievement over the last 18 months-perhaps the signature achievement of whatever length of time is his presidency- I think that we will be able to make the case on a number of areas of government overreach.

DS: Well, I guess my last question- and you talked about what the Democrats have done badly, and I agree with you- but I came of age during the Bush years, and Republicans obviously didn’t do so well between 2001 and 2006 with the Medicare Part D, and they jumped the cost of government, the size of government, up. How do you convince the American people that Republicans are trustworthy? Not you individually, of course [DS: Rep. Bachmann was first elected in 2006, and served her first term starting in 2007], but how, I mean, the Republican Party as a whole. This year, yes, it’s anti-incumbent, but I don’t think, personally, that it’s so much pro-Republican.

MB: Oh, I think you’re accurate about that. I think people are reacting negatively to what they have observed from the Pelosi/Reid/Obama agenda. People intuitively understand that they can’t live with excessive spending that creates unsustainable levels of debt- if they can’t live like that in their own personal lives or in their businesses, they certainly know that government doesn’t have a magic formula that defies economic reality. So people are rejecting the Obama agenda. People want to know, “Republicans, if we give you the gavel, can we trust you? Will you be responsible? Do you have a plan to get us out of this hole?” And that’s up to Republicans, now, to make that message. I think one of the best things we could do, is let the American people know- number one- if you put us in office, we will vote to full-scale repeal ObamaCare. Root and branch, we will pull it out, and we will repeal that measure. I think that’s something that is a very saleable proposition. I also think it’s saleable to tell the American people that we will pass a budget- a balanced budget- and I think that’s what people want us to do, is to pass a balanced budget, and then to show the American people, first of all, that the tremendous straits that we’re in, financially, going forward, once people know the difficulties and the reality of the problem that we’re in right now, I think they’ll be more amenable to the solutions that we can propose to put our financial house on a- in the right order.

DS: I hope so, because I’d like to see this country be as good for me as it was for my parents, so-

MB: Exactly. I will tell you, anywhere I go to speak, I ask that question. “Do you believe you live better than your parents?” Almost everyone in the audience puts their hand up. I ask them, “do you think your children will live better than you financially?” Virtually no one puts their hands up. I doubt in the last 234 years, if you ask that question of any generation, that they would think that their children would not be better off than they are; I just don’t think that you would have gotten that response. That’s really what is frightening today, because we’ve always been a country that’s been about forward- looking people, and growth. And this is one of the first times when Americans look into the future, and they see diminished way of life, and they see decline.

The beauty of America, is that we get to choose.  We get to choose decline, or we get to choose if we want growth. I think that if you put the question to a referendum to the American people, they will choose growth. And if that means pinching back on a social safety-net, I think that we’ll have buy-in from people, because, ultimately people do want better for their children and for the next generation.  Even if people are childless, they want the next generation to be able to do well. In fact, I think it’s simply the matter of having to make the case, you know just like you’ll see on Glenn Beck with his chalkboard, he makes a compelling case if he’s describing an issue. And I think that’s something that Republicans will have to do, so to speak, have our own kind of a chalkboard where we make the case to the American people of two futures for America: one where we go down the road of the Pelosi-Reid Agenda that they have taken us down, which the American people are thoroughly rejecting, but take it beyond the year 2010…play it out to 2020, and play it out to what America will look like when we are in the same economic bind that Greece is in today. Economists like Larry Lindsey tell us that we are looking within a ten-year window of having that type of economic decline. That truly is not a road that people would choose to go down, and that’s what gives me great hope and great excitement because even people who are senior citizens, they don’t want to bequeath a future grounded in decline. I know that sounds like an oxymoron; but senior citizens don’t want to see that for their own children and grand-children. And that’s what gives me hope going forward- because we really are a nation of very bright people, who make good choices. We could trust the American peoples’ choice, we just need to give them the truth and put all facts on the table, and then I have every hope and every reason to believe that people will make choices for their own gain and their own benefit because no one wants to succeed… I mean, no one wants to fail, everyone wants to succeed.

DS: Well, Representative Bachmann, I think I’ve run out of time. I really appreciate what you’ve said and hopefully we’ll see you doing a lot of that, especially if Republicans take back the House.

MB: Well, and we’ll do this again soon, I’d love to do this again!

DS: Alright, thank you very much.  Take care!

MB: Alright, bye bye.

[Note: I would like to thank RJ; Will; and Nick for helping transcribe the interview. This would not have gotten posted without their help. DS]

Can Americans Make the Tough Choices?

The Center for American Progress, which bills itself as the liberal Heritage Foundation, has a really good pie chart of how the federal budget is split among the various areas it funds. I recommend taking a look, so you can see exactly where this massively oversized budget is going.

CAP also has a quick take- they call it an analysis, though it is far short of that- on where the money goes. In actuality, it discusses where Americans would cut the budget. Their findings, as correlated by the numerous sources the “analysis” cites, show Americans are mostly abstract about cutting the budget. According to CAP:

But, the American public’s disdain for “government spending” only holds up in the abstract. The public is much less willing to pull out the hatchet when asked about specific parts of the federal budget. That same Economist poll gave respondents a list of budget areas and asked them which ones should be cut. Only one area garnered majority support for reductions— foreign aid. And foreign aid makes up less than 2 percent of the federal budget even using the most expansive definition. Even eliminating it completely would have little discernible impact on the federal bottom line.

There was not even one other area aside from foreign aid where support for cuts cracked 30 percent, let alone 50, including everything from science and technology to aid to the poor. Support for cuts to two of the biggest budget items—Social Security and Medicare—didn’t even make it out of the single digits. And lest one think this one poll was an anomaly, recent polls from Quinnipiac and Democracy Corps confirm the overall message: people support the abstract idea of spending reductions, but don’t like actually cutting specific programs.

Americans need to make tough choices over the next several years to begin the long process of balancing the federal budget and eliminating our national public debt. CAP’s piece does a credible job of showing that, unfortunately, this may very well not happen. In particular, two segments of Americans deserve blame. First, young-and-middle-aged people don’t want higher taxes for entitlements they won’t receive. Secondly, old people don’t want to lose entitlement benefits for which they have been taxed; and middle-class America. Unfortunately, unless the sacrifices are made, our national debt will swallow this country whole. Hopefully, Americans will realize this and prepare themselves for the tough but necessary path to prosperity.

(For the record, I am one of the young people who doesn’t want to be taxed. I am all for cutting entitlements over time, slowly phasing people out of certain, among other ideas to balance the budget and lessen the debt. This is not fair to older people, but I think it’s the only viable option to kick-start the process. Otherwise, we’ll have to raise taxes, and that will devastate the economy. I have many other ideas, including ones I will address at a later time, but for the sake of this post I will stop with what I have above.)

Campus Progress Dislikes Competition

Campus Progress (part of the Center for American Progress) has an article on its site talking about The Leadership Institute’s new CampusReform.org. The article was, for the most part, fair to CR and LI. Interestingly, though, Andrea Nill at Think Progress (also associated with CAP) has a real issue with CR. I guess only liberals can have college activism, which is exactly what Campus Progress is. For instance, on their website: “Campus Progress, part of the Center for American Progress, works to help young people — advocates, activists, journalists, artists — make their voices heard on issues that matter. Through an online magazine and student publications, public events, multimedia projects, and grassroots issue campaigns, Campus Progress acts to empower new progressive leaders nationwide as they develop fresh ideas, communicate in new ways, push policy outcomes in a progressive direction, and build a strong progressive movement.”

Meanwhile, CR dares to have this on their site: “Created to give conservatives powerful new weapons in their fight for the hearts and minds of the next generation of citizens, politicians, and members of the media, CampusReform.org facilitates the establishment of conservative student networks and supports their development as a powerful voice of activism on their campuses. It makes available new opportunities for groups? interaction with alumni, parents, faculty, and other members of the broader community interested in taking a stand for conservative principles on America?s college campuses.”

Solution to Nill’s hyperventilism: Remember that freedom of speech and activism are for conservatives, too- even if you disagree. (Oh, and criticizing James O’Keefe for his work on ACORN is not a good way to demean LI- it merely makes you appear supportive of ACORN’s corruption.)

Meet Mark Lloyd: FCC Chief Propaganda Officer

Watch this:

Catch that? Media is a powerful tool when used “independently”. By this, Mark Lloyd of course means having a neutral third party watch dogging how media is used. And that neutral third party is of course the FCC whose people were appointed by a socialist progressive regime running our current government.

Lloyd wants to make sure your political intake is “fair and balanced”, but not in the sort of way Fox News advertises. More in the CCCP has decided what you should hear from this radio station or this TV channel sort of way.

This is the new face of the Fairness Doctrine by any other name would smell as sweet. Memorize it.

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle. -Sun Tzu

Does anyone know what comes after media control? What comes after the “authority” controls media, is thought control. Don’t think this is possible? Do you think people in the world were as reasonable and conscientious as you or I today back 73 years ago? You know who was successful in controlling thoughts and actions of a well educated, reasonable, and conscientious people? The Nazi’s. First through controlling media, radio and newspapers, then controlling the message and counter message, and then by controlling how they thought. Did you know the Nazi’s told the German’s that they couldn’t smoke or eat certain foods because the government had decided what was best for them? Heard anything like that lately?

Mark Lloyd is not your friend. He is not here to help you or to make sure that everyone is hearing “both sides of the story.” He is here to make sure you hear the administrations side of the story.

In the futuristic tales of society, I always thought that Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was much more on task than that of the more often referenced 1984 by George Orwell. Along with Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World focuses on a society too busy to care. Their democratic system lays crumbled at their feet. But it wasn’t a war that forced government control and the creep of communism and fascism like in 1984. Society is simply too wrapped up in the glitz and glamor of the newest soap opera, automobile, celebrity, etc to care about the dilapidation of their liberty. Sort of the society of which one-third of the country will watch the Super Bowl, but only 119 million will vote in a presidential election.

He [Lloyd] wants them to regulate political advertising and commentary, the number of commercials these stations run, and ratings information about programs before they are broadcast. So basically he wants to takeover regulation of the entire operation of radio and television stations. -Seton Motley, 8/26/2009, Glenn Beck Show

This isn’t a recent phenomenon for Lloyd though. In 2007 (Strangely enough the time period in which Dems backed off the Fairness Doctrine to rename it. Which begs the question, is this a new Dem strategy? If something doesn’t pass the taste test with the American people, you just rename it and try again?) Lloyd wrote an article called Forget the Fairness Doctrine for the Center for American Progress. A well known fair and balanced think tank in DC. Which is an accurate statement as long as “fair and balanced” means “as far left as possible”. If there was a cliff where you could go no farther left, CAP would have fallen off of it. The article itself begs additional questions, like if you are trying to present a neutral case for fair media balance, why aren’t you publishing in a newspaper instead of on CAP’s blog?

But I digress…

In the article, Forget the Fairness Doctrine Lloyd presents the case for regulating free speech.? But he also makes the case not to regulate free speech. You read that correctly. It’s very clever. Watch:

From paragraph 2:

Only the most misinformed still believe that radio group owners such as Citadel Broadcasting Corp., which refuses to air popular progressive hosts like Ed Shultz, are only concerned about the bottom line. Few would agree that markets such as Philadelphia and Houston are well served with 100 percent conservative talk radio.

Here Lloyd says there isn’t a balance, something he would like to change forceably. But…wait for it…

But that doesn?t mean that the answer to this pervasive imbalance is the Fairness Doctrine.

Then he pretends that this action is not what the Fairness Doctrine is all about.

From paragraph 3:

In our report, we call for ownership rules that we think will create greater local diversity of programming, news, and commentary. And we call for more localism by putting teeth into the licensing rules.

And once again a call for enforcement of “balanced” media.

But we do not call for a return to the Fairness Doctrine.

Followed by the statement that what he is talking about isn’t the Fairness Doctrine.

You know what it’s called when someone tells you one thing but is attempting to do something else? Propaganda.

Maybe no one has told Lloyd what the Fairness Doctrine is? Because it sure sounds like he’s saying he doesn’t want the Fairness Doctrine, but he wants the ability to regulate local radio and television markets presentation of content. In fact, he couldn’t have been more clear.

By the way, this is the same guy that praised Chavez for taking over the media to execute his take over of the Venezuelan government.

I hope America has woken up in the last six months.? Because you are in for a long fight.? And we all have responsibility in the battle; both those of us who voted in this administration and those of us who didn’t do more to resist it.

The Obama administration is full of micro-presidents known as Czars that pull in the reigns of bureaucratic powers that have normally been separated from the Executive branch.? He has appointed self-confessing socialists and communists to places of power in our country, and the last six months has been an appetizer.

America, we’ve got 15 more months of this to go before we even have a shot at any recourse. Stimulus packages, cap-and-trade, and health care are just the tip of the spear. Steady your sights, and remain strong in your resolve.

-nick