We must act on entitlements

Recently, with tears in her eyes, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard spoke before a joint session of the U.S. Congress and said, “I firmly believe you are the same people who amazed me when I was a small girl by landing on the moon. On that great day I believed Americans could do anything. I believe that still.”

At that same moment, Space Shuttle Discovery was making its final landing.

Sad irony, because the United States no longer has a program in place to continue human space exploration.

Though I lament the demise of our stellar space program, the greater tragedy is losing our ability to simply debate the merits of space exploration and other discretionary spending programs which include Housing, Law Enforcement, Education, Veterans, Environment, Medical Research, Transportation, Homeland Security, and Disaster Relief, among others.

Even arguing over funding for our national defense will no longer be possible in 15 years because all federal revenue will be consumed by Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the debt by 2025.

If entitlement spending is not controlled, not only will we lose the ability to inspire by doing great things or lead the world to fix a future natural or man-made catastrophe, but there will be no money left for a single rifle for our national defense, a slice of bread for nutrition assistance, or ability to cut one dollar in taxes to prevent some future recession.

Ms. Gillard is right. It’s America’s DNA to accomplish great things. Today, that next great thing is to fix our self-inflicted fiscal straitjacket so future generations of Americans can inspire the world anew.

We can accomplish this through shared sacrifice and demanding that our leaders meet their fiduciary responsibility by making tough choices on entitlements. Failure is not an option.

John Szalinski

Mundelein