This is the real state of the union

As I go to the polls on Feb. 5th, I have taken a reality check and I hope you have too.

Since the current president has been in office, he has driven us from a surplus budget and national debt of $5.7 trillion to $9 trillion and continues deficit budget spending. This is a $3.3 trillion increase in debt, or an increase of $11,000 for each and every American, man, woman, and child.

Why don't we have enough revenue to balance the budget? He threw out "pay-as-you-go budgeting." He then implemented a tax cut to corporate America and the wealthy that reduced revenues to finance that cut, but did not reduce government spending to correspond with the lost revenues. The war alone has cost a half of trillion dollars, and yet he is reluctant to spend a third of that amount, $150 billion, on rebates to middle or lower class Americans to get his failing economy going again. Why is the economy failing? Ask any family that has run-up their credit cards to the maximum and can no longer purchase. They are stuck trying to pay off prior year's purchases. Well, this is what this guy "Bush" has done to America, and yet continues to beg China for more loans as we watch the dollar fall in value.

As I recall, this was to be a country run "....by the people and for the people..." not by corporations for the corporations. With a Congress and president bought and sold by corporate America, it is no wonder everyone is finally crying for "change." From my perspective, this is the reality of our current state of the union as we again go to the polls.

Leo A. Dietrich

Lake Villa