I am seriously concerned about the fate of our nation. We would have a lot of explaining to do if any of our founding fathers had the audacity or imprudence to return today. 

How would we explain that corporations have personhood and freedom of speech that therefore allows them to put unlimited amounts of money into political campaigns? Or that of all the countries in the developed world, we and we alone, will not or cannot pay for health care for all our citizens? 

I am an optimist by nature but I am increasingly outraged by the hubris of our elected officials. They have huge salaries; they have expense accounts and assistants; they have healthcare benefits we can only dream of. And we are paying them to do what? Posture on television, spout divisive untruths, and fail to compromise when compromise is the basis of democracy?

Smart people

Its not just me people smarter than most of us are beginning to whine and reason and cajole in attempts to point out that our system is seriously broken. But what to do about it? How to understand what is happening when we cannot even agree on basic concepts should smart and dedicated people be allowed to come into our country to work hard at jobs that most Americans dont want? Should we be responsible for our elders? How responsible? 

The overwhelming majority of scientists have proven that climate change is happening, right now. Were in it. And the costs of doing nothing will surpass by far the costs of dealing with it. Protecting New Orleans with new levee systems could cost upwards of $32 billion according to John Schwarz writing in the New York Times one miniscule example.

Developing new forms of energy that reduce our carbon output would both create new jobs whole new industries and mitigate climate disruption effects. If Copenhagen can heat its citizens homes all winter by burning garbage, why cant we? Why do we need to import wind turbines and technology from China?

On a July 8 Charlie Rose forum, Tom Friedman, New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner, said, Were not having an adult conversation right now. We have big problems to deal with in economics, education, health care … and I dont just want to be OK, I want this country to be great again.

But on our current trajectory, were not just slipping from greatness, were heading full speed into the ditch.

Just the facts, maam

OK, were having a debt crisis. But lets review. We entered the George W. Bush presidency with a surplus of $127 billion. During his administration, the debt ceiling was raised by Republicans seven times in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, and twice in 2008. Now, suddenly no Republican can stomach raising the debt ceiling without also cutting one of the last remaining safety nets for middleclass Americans: Social Security and Medicare.

When Bush left office, the country had a deficit of $1.2 trillion and was in the grip of a second great depression. The combined cost of the Bush war is in excess of $4 trillion. We have 6,000 soldiers killed outright and Veterans Administration medical claims for another 550,000 brave warriors. (And lets not forget that the war has also killed roughly 140,000 civilians and displaced over 7.8 million people its like the entire population of Connecticut and Kentucky migrating to Ohio with their possessions on their backs. See www.costsofwar.org for details.)

As David Leonhardt, and many others, have pointed out, Recovery from financial crises are usually slow, theyre often uneven, and theyre painful … and unemployment always lags the recovery. People want more benefits than theyre willing to pay for and were not willing to hear the truth.

And we dont have politicians brave enough to get us out of this fix. Obamas tendency to lead from behind is not what we need. As David Brooks said, President Obama has shown that he would make an excellent Senator.

Financial crises

We need more people like the courageous Sheila Bair, former head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), who was belittled and scorned at every turn in the early days of the financial crisis. She was clear that her job was to protect bank depositors folks like you and me and not the CEOs or bond holders on Wall Street who bet big bucks on sleazy deals and still got their bonuses and no jail time.

Joe Nocera, writing in the New York Times Magazine, quotes Bair as saying, They should have let Bear Stearns fail. She understood that investment firms, banks and credit unions are different animals. The Glass Steagall Act of 1933 was created after the last Great Depression to put up a wall between local banks, which take our money and lend it to our neighbors for homes, and investment institutions, which deal in junk bonds, futures, derivatives and bundles of bogus mortgages.

With pressure from the financial community (according to Brett Arends a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, the financial industry spent $474 million on lobbying in 2010), a bill to repeal Glass-Steagall was introduced by Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas) and Congressman Jim Leach (R-Iowa) in 1999. The bill passed by a Republican majority in the Senate and a bi-partisan vote in the House. The wall came down.

The FDIC insures our deposits up to $250,000. Bair said, There is no insurance premium on bondholders. For the little guy on Main Street who has bank deposits, we charge the banks a premium for that, and it gets passed on to the customer. We dont have the same thing for bondholders. Theyre supposed to take risks.

We, apparently, have not learned the lessons of how and when governmental regulation is needed. Arends and others believe we are simply creating a new financial bubble that will burst, perhaps even more dramatically in the future. 

We have been sold a bill of goods that government is bad. Government is not bad; it is how civilized economies deal with systems that require a centrally administered commitment for common good like roads, banking, rule of law, healthcare and education.

Have we lost our minds? If you want no government, look at Syria; take a gander at Afghanistan; or, Goddess help them, the new state of South Sudan.

We have wasted the first decade of this new century. Its time to grow up and remember, as David Brooks recently said, We are still something that China will never be a crossroads nation where people can come from all over the world and magnify their talents.