It's the Deficit Stupid!

This is not an endorsement of either major party candidate for President. Rather it's an endorsement of the one and only issue you need to think about before you cast your ballot.

The Deficit. Check out the National Debt Clock for the current, and very scary numbers. It's so huge that it defies description. How it will impact us all is easy. We're going broke. In fact we are broke.

As a nation we're like a bunch of people who got together for a big fancy steak dinner. We've chowed down on prime rib, filet mignon, drinking 18 year old scotch and are ordering cheesecake for desert. We're looking around the table figuring one of us is going to pick up the tab right?

Wrong. Everyone's credit card is maxed out and our only choice is to all try and sneak out on the bill or spend a long night washing dishes. Both solutions fraught with peril to our prestige as a nation. In fact our existence as a nation.

President Obama asked former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson and former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles to form a commission and come up with solutions. Both men are patriotic, brilliant and solution seekers. They put together a bi-partisan team and came up with a road map to reduce the monstrous deficit. Read it here.

After much praise and fanfare, it was stuffed in a drawer where it resides today. That's because there was no sugar in it to help the medicine go down. It's because it would require actual political courage to enact the measures to save us from joining Thelma and Louise driving off the edge of the Grand Canyon.

The debates are over. A myriad of pundits have opined. It's time to cast your ballot. Before you do, ask yourself which of the two candidates is best prepared to lead us in digging out of a very deep and dark financial hole. It will take no small amount of courage. It will take all of us to be part of the solution. All of us.

We can't have equal pay if there is no money. We can't have Medicare or Social Security if there is no money. We can't grow our economy if there is no money. We can't compete in the global market place if there is no money. We can't defend ourselves if there is no money.

There is no money.

The question isn't are we better off that we were four years ago. It's "Will we be better off as a nation four years from now?"

Ignore the made for TV sound bites. Ignore the nonsense being posted on Social Media. As Al Simpson says, look at the Math, not myth.

It's time to decide. While you do the National Debt Clock is ticking. Upward.

Brian Olson
Owner/Consultant
Conversation Starters Public Relations
"We start the conversation about you!"