WHAT'S THE VISION?

I have a question. It should be simple, really. Where are we headed?

Every month, our president tells us that something needs to be fundamentally reformed. This week it was Wall Street and immigration law. Through the summer we were hammered time and again that our healthcare system needs to be transformed. In the spring we needed to fundamentally revamp the auto and banking industries. In the fall of '08 we were in an economic crisis that needed to be overhauled.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on record back in May as saying, "Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory . . . "* in regard to how each and every one of us is addressing what was then called Global Warming, since reformed into the less specific, useful-in-any-crisis term, Climate Change.

Global warming becomes climate change. Health care reform becomes Insurance reform. Even the Liberals are reforming their label into "Progressives."

There seems to be no end to the litany of reforms, and the Democratic Party's defensive posture to any negative response to the political, economic, social, and behavioral upheaval foisted upon us in nine short months has deteriorated into juvenile character assassination.

We have been told that everything needs to be changed but I have yet to hear where we will end up? There has been no grand vision laid out for us. And that, my fellow citizens, should scare everyone.

Let us assume that the House, Senate, and White House do get their way, and after racking up tens of TRILLIONS of dollars in unsustainable debt, what will we have? Will we have a grand utopia? Will hunger, disease, and poverty be relegated to the history books? What will our GDP be? What will our individual tax burden look like?

These are important questions. I have worked for companies where someone at the top of the ladder was not happy with how fast things were going and started implementing change for the sake of change. It was never progressive and it always ended badly.

Today I work for an organization who carefully examines ROI (return on investment). If I want to spend money on a program, I have to present a solid case for why, how much, what the outcome will be, and what will be the expected return on investment. That's wise business. It is slower. It takes more careful planning and execution, but the risks are minimized and damage control is managed before damage can take place.

I don't think it is too much to ask — where are we headed? Every American is being compelled to sacrifice. We are all sharing a phenomenal debt the size of which the world has never before conceived. We are going to have to surrender a tremendous number of personal liberties in this quest for a Progressive Utopia.

When the dust settles, what will we have? Give me the vision. All I want is political reason. Help the American people see what you are planning Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Reid, President Obama. Do you even know?

If not, then we are very busy making changes for the sake of change — without a vision — and that always ends badly.


* Just who is going to be conducting these "inventories," Ms. Speaker? Or have you yet to share that piece of legislation?