Reform Now, for Day of Reckoning Coming

2 • February 5, 2017 CROSSROADS FOR AMERICA INTRODUCTION A closer look at the state of our Union By William S. Morris III Total federal spending Accumulated gross federal debt Trillions of dollars America is at a crossroads. From ﬁscal year 1792 to ﬁscal year 2020 We face as many fundamen- 2000 $1.79 tal and fateful decisions as we 120 2001 $1.86 have in more than a century. 2002 $2.01 What kind of country are 100 we? What kind of government 2003 $2.16 should we have – and how 2004 $2.29 much should it do for us? What 80 is the nature of our relationship 2005 $2.47 to our government, and to each 2006 $2.66 other? What is America’s role 60 2007 $2.73 in the world? An alarming number of 2008 $2.98 Americans have become 40 2009 $3.52 ominously dependent on the Percent of gross domestic product domestic gross of Percent 2010 government financially. It’s $3.46 20 unfortunate for those trapped 2011 $3.60 by hardship – making it dif- 2012 $3.54 ficult for them to realize their 0 potential as human beings – 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2013 $3.46 and wholly unsustainable for Source: usgovernmentspending.com 2014 $3.51 the country. rorism inadequate to achieve tunes, and our sacred Honor.” 2015 These are some of the many Shares of total victory. It is that spirit with which we $3.69 profound challenges we ad- federal spending, 2016 How did we get here? must come together as Ameri- 2016 $3.95 dress in this special publication Somewhere along the way, cans to renew our republic. Source: Oce of Management and Budget we’re calling “Crossroads for Defense All other we went down the wrong road. We desperately need to re- America.” activities Lured by the siren song of turn to those guiding principles Through neglect, dispute and 15% socialism since the days of Wil- that made this the greatest With a new president and shortsightedness, this coun- 31% son and Roosevelt, we’ve trav- nation on Earth. We need to Congress, we have a historic try has allowed our federal eled innumerable miles from rein in our runaway federal opportunity to address these government to swell in size and 24% our Founders’ wisdom. We’ve government, reduce the current and other challenges facing scope, and our national debt lost sight of the constitutional confiscatory rate of taxation, the nation. President Trump to explode, even as our public 6% and Judeo-Christian principles remove the yoke of government has promised to do so, and we infrastructure, economic foot- Social that guided us for some 200 from our economy, reduce our should hold him to it. 15% 9% Interest ing and national security have Security years: limited government, dependence on it, restore our We must, as John F. Kennedy all suffered mightily. individual sovereignty and military, secure our border and implored us, ask not what our Medicaid Our national debt is $20 tril- Medicare liberty, rights granted by God, reclaim our place of preemi- country can do for us, but what lion and rising, and our future Source: Oce of Management and Budget and more. nence among nations. we can do for our country. unfunded expenditures for Today’s public dialogue also We must first understand And we must resolve, as Medicare, Medicaid and Social perilously from the states to the falls woefully short of the spirit and appreciate the nature of Abraham Lincoln put it, that Security exceed $100 trillion. federal government, and from of our Founders when they America, and what makes it “government of the people, by Yet, year after year we go on the legislative branch to the concluded the Declaration of exceptional in the pantheon of the people, for the people, shall living beyond our means and executive. Independence with the words, history. Then we must rededi- not perish from the earth.” burdening future generations Our southern border is “with a firm reliance on the cate ourselves to those prin- Crossroads indeed. with our debt – which is pa- nearly lawless, our immigration protection of Divine Provi- ciples and practices that have tently immoral. All the while, system dangerously chaotic dence, we mutually pledge to been proven to work over the William S. Morris III is chairman the balance of power shifts and progress in the war on ter- each other our Lives, our For- 241-year American Experiment. of Morris Communications LLC. ABOUTA ‘CROSSRO DS FOR AMERICA’ IEND X This is a special publication about our government, our country, our Capitalism 3 Law and Order 10 China 18 people and our future. ‘Crossroads for America’ is not attached to an National Debt 4 Separation of Powers 11 Cybersecurity 19 election, a campaign, a movement, a specific group of people or a entitlements 5 Three branches 12, 13 energy 20 cause. It is a factual, comprehensive report about where the United States of America stands. Taxation/Tax Policy 6 Founding Principles 14 Civility 21 ‘Crossroads for America’ is produced by Morris Publishing Group, economy/Jobs 7 Immigration 15 role of Media 22 which owns and operates 11 daily newspapers as well as non-daily newspapers, city magazines and free community publications in the Health Care 8 america’s role 16 Civics 23 Southeast, Midwest, Southwest and Alaska. Government Dependence 9 Foreign Policy 17 america’s Identity 24 CROSS ROADS FOR AMERICA FEBRUARY 5, 2017 • 3 CAPITALISM Markets, like the nation, must be free By Michael Ryan might hate Americans, but they serve us well and they do so voluntarily. The There’s a lot of buying and selling bottom line motivation for the coopera- that goes on in the free market. Yet the tion is people are in it for themselves.” one thing the free market can’t seem to In other words, enlightened self-inter- sell these days is itself. est drives the free market – and drives As demonstrated dramatically in the essential products to your door. odd and chaotic “Occupy” movement of “It is not from the benevolence of the a few years ago, a lot of folks just aren’t butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that buying the benefits of capitalism these we expect our dinner,” the legendary days. economist Smith wrote, “but from their Young people in particular are a regard to their own interest.” tough sell – even as they hold a Star- A website listing the supposed pros bucks latte in one hand while they tweet and cons of capitalism included, as one their anti-capitalist rage on their smart- of the free market’s shortcomings, that phone. No irony there. it ignores social benefits. Far from it! The free market – which is insepa- Capitalism actually produces a mind- rable from freedom itself – simply needs boggling number of social benefits. to sell itself better. We need to tell its “By pursuing his own interest,” Smith story and celebrate it. We need our wrote, a business person “frequently young to buy into it. promotes that of the society more ef- Strangely, and ominously, we don’t fectually than when he really intends to seem to tell the story very well. Con- promote it.” sider: Junior Achievement, which No other economic system has risen introduces youths to the principles of so many up out of poverty. Even capital- the free market, has to rely on donations Associated Press ism’s own opponents in the Harvard – and the permission of bureaucrats – to E nlightened self-interest drives a free market and brings products to consumers. poll were hard-pressed to come up with get into the schools. a better alternative. Astonishingly, a Harvard University of communism. In addition, the media simple system of natural liberty’.” Indeed, besides all the other benefits poll last year found that a majority of do a much better job of highlighting Citing such an outwardly simple thing of capitalism – including economic Americans ages 18 to 29 don’t even sup- capitalism’s occasional outrages, such as how a can of tuna gets to your store freedom, life-sustaining products and port capitalism: 51 percent oppose it, as Enron, than all that the free market shelf, columnist and economist Walter services, growing the economic pie while 42 percent support it. does for humanity. Williams calls capitalism an “economic (rather than just cutting it up), and put- Amazing. Frightening. This is the This is a crisis of confidence. And it’s miracle.” ting a premium on efficiency – it’s argu- heart of American life. It’s the very key insane. Again, the free market is part From sea to shelf, he writes, “It is not able that one of the main byproducts of to economic freedom and vitality. And and parcel of freedom. a stretch of the imagination to sug- capitalism is happiness: Polls show the yet, it’s a tough sell among our young? “Capitalism is what people do if you gest that millions of inputs and people happiest people on Earth live primarily We’d better wake up and address this. leave them alone,” is how an econom- cooperate with one another to get in capitalistic, democratic countries. It isn’t just the very young that need ics professor at the London School of canned tuna to your supermarket.” And, Most of the best-fed folks, too. to hear it, either. Of the Harvard poll, Economics once put it. he notes, “The average well-stocked It’s crazy, and dangerous, that such ‘The Washington Post’ wrote, “Only Writes Robert Hessen, senior re- supermarket carries over 60,000 differ- large portions of our youths would lose among respondents at least 50 years old search fellow at Stanford University’s ent items.” sight of all this.

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