The problem is that this country is bankrupt. We have a national debt of over $15 trillion equal to our GDP. We borrow 42 cents of every federal dollar spent. We have an unfunded liability of over $60 trillion represented by our entitlement programs, which will continue to increase in costs as our population ages. And we are confronted with globalization where the emerging markets like China and India, are taking our middle class jobs as multinationals leave the US.
I graduated high school in 1961. We are in entirely different circumstances, fiscally and otherwise, than we were then. And we are no longer the same country demographically or electorally. Immigrants account for one in 8 U.S. residents, the highest level in more than 90 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. In a decade, it will be one in 7, the highest it has been in our history. And by 2050, one in 5 residents of the U.S. will be foreign-born.
We can reach higher, but not until we get our feet planted firmly on the ground again. We are already seeing the battle being played out between guns versus butter as the Dems seek to slash military spending and shift the savings over to keep the welfare state running a little longer. This is a sign of a great nation in decline in much the same way the British Empire sputtered to an inglorious end.
But that “costs too much” argument has already been asked and answered. The federal component of a revived space program would be mere pennies on the dollar. This is where the fed does those few things the fed does best and leverages those advantages to the benefit of private entrepreneurism funded primarily by private capital. There is no need to throw the baby out with the bath water. The moment we stop reaching higher is the very moment we begin to sink. That vast sea of red ink was not caused by the space program. It was caused by the lurch toward a virtually unlimited welfare state. And when you’re in debt, maybe you don’t buy that second car, or maybe you go for a lower mortgage. But you don’t stop eating, you don’t stop working, and you sure don’t stop trying to make things better. Because that last thing is where your recovery eventually comes from.
See, Newt gets the notion of creating a national project to focus our energies on something that will both benefit us and give us common cause. What you’re proposing is rather like dad coming home after getting fired and telling everybody to tighten their belts and stay at home and watch the news about how awful things are. Based on your high school graduation, you have some memory of the adults in your life gong through the depression. Yes, they conserved, everything from string to paper bags. My dad made sardine soup and was proud of it. But they never, not even once, stopped pushing together for the next grand achievement of the country. It was a powerful force for unity among the many immigrant people of that day, and it can work that way again.
And I have a special connection with that. My dad and his three brothers were all very sharp, highly motivated, big picture people. Well, maybe Fred was not so motivated. But the others were superstars in their own domains. Two of them were real rocket scientists, and one of them worked on the Manhattan project in the race to beat the Germans to the Bomb. The children of that brother have remained in the space industry and work on amazing interplanetary propulsion systems as private sector contractors of the highest order. They barely know I exist, but I could not be prouder of them. They are wealth generators. Their ideas are making work and money for thousands downstream of them.
And if we are to recover at all, we need wealth generators, and we need people of high motivation and lofty goals. Sulking about our debt will not relieve our debt. Ceasing to grow and try new things will not relieve our debt. Curling up into the fetal position while our bitter enemies consolidate their power over the far frontiers will not relieve our debt. But fostering a sense of good old-fashioned American pride over great and daring things accomplished, combined with a concerted effort to score those accomplishments primarily through private sector initiative and expansion, now *that’s* a path back to long-term health for our people. You won’t get there without a vision, and a vision’s no good if there isn’t a clear bull’s-eye that captures our aspirations and imagination as a people. Newt’s got an idea what that positive vision of America’s future might be. What’s Rick’s? What’s Ron’s? What’s Mitt’s?