Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 28, 1994 TAG: 9410280047
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ORRIN W. CLIFTON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
THE AVERAGE American citizen has become increasingly cynical about elected politicians at all levels. We blame them for all of society's woes when we're the ones who put politicians in their jobs.
If a politician has the audacity to mention well-thought-out solutions to the morass of problems confronting us, he's sure to lose the next election. Everyone wants these complex problems to be solved without personal sacrifice or adjustment.
It's clear the biggest danger to our country's security isn't external, but rather the internally generated national debt. This debt is sapping our standard of living by limiting the money available for industrial expansion and slowing our growth in productivity.
For any politician or group of politicians to tell the American people that the deficit can be eliminated without cuts in entitlement programs, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, federal employee pensions and health-care programs, is irresponsible. To go further and propose increased defense spending along with tax cuts, while at the same time promising to balance the budget, is blatantly dishonest.
However, should a politician stand up to courageously tell the truth about the mess we're in and what must be done to start to fix it invites a personal disaster.
We got in this fix with Republican presidents and a Democratic Congress, and we'll have to get out of it by shared sacrifice. If we, as an electorate, don't become better informed and demand specific details from our candidates, we cannot complain when they do nothing. Our shared problems cannot be solved as long as we hold candidates hostage to only those proposals that pander to our own self-interest.
I challenge our national elected legislators, and the three candidates currently running for the Senate from Virginia, to formulate reasoned, specific proposals to balance the budget and to eventually eliminate the deficit.
A candidate who doesn't have the courage to answer specific questions doesn't deserve to serve in the U.S. Congress. An electorate that doesn't look beyond finger pointing and simple solutions, and doesn't reward reasoned, if difficult, assault on our national debt, deserves nothing better than the Congress it gets.
Orrin W. Clifton of Roanoke is an orthodontist and a member of the Concord Coalition.
by CNB