We cannot spend our way out of this economic nightmare. Not by any level of spending ... federal, state and local government, company or individual. Greed and materialism got us into this. More insane spending won't fix the underlying cause and the problem will only get worse.
We've built an economy on debt with American enterprise and work ethic as collateral. A little debt is helpful to grow the economy if we use it to invest in our future. However, spending like crazy just to have better 'stuff' than the next person is economically sick. It doesn't say much for our values and principles either. Whatever happened to living within one's means? Being in debt used to be thought of as something to be avoided. It would be best for us to get back to those kinds of principles.
Now the President is encouraging us to just 'spend' to get our economy going again but that isn't the answer. We don't have the money to spend. It's gone. So how does more debt help fix this problem? If we could go cold-turkey on mindless spending and credit card debt our economy would recover faster and in a much healthier way. Problem with that is it means the obvious pain of companies going out of business because they've become so dependent on Americans going into debt to buy 'stuff'. But people, even the President, don't seem to understand that just 'spending' is even more painful because this level of debt in our country (especially if we increase it by trying to spend our way out) will kill our economy for farther into the future than we can possibly imagine.
The best solution is practicing better fiscal responsibility at all levels ... government, companies and individuals. Restrained spending and more saving (ie, living within our means) will be really, really good for us in the long run. Swallow the bitter pill now for a much healthier future.
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