By: Jeffrey Klein
Political Buzz Examiner

The well known Libertarian author, Wayne Allyn Root, makes a strong argument for America being in the clutches of a “slow motion economic collapse,” exponentially more dangerous than the Great Depression of 1929, which could trigger the end to our Republic, according to his August 23, 2012 FOXNews article.

Although Root acknowledges the role of our galactic $16 Trillion national debt and parade of seemingly incurable $1 Trillion+ annual deficits in this calamity, he has also specifically identified numerous drastic changes that have evolved in the United States since 1929, which have created destructive threads in the fabric of our society–particularly … “the dysfunctional structure of the current U.S. economy and the massive changes in the work ethic and mindset of the average American.”

What are these ‘drastic changes’ that differentiate 2012 from 1929?

• Most of our states were not bankrupt, insolvent and dependent on federal government handouts to survive.
• We did not have 21 million government employees with bloated salaries, obscene pensions, and free health care for life. Today 20 percent of federal employees earn over $100,000; 77,000 earn more than the governors of their states; and a staggering number retire at a young age with $100,000 pensions for life.
• Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid didn’t exist, where now these obligations threaten to consume the entire federal budget within a few years.
• Welfare, food stamps, aid to dependent children, and English as a second language programs didn’t exist either–American’s didn’t consider it the responsibility of government to pay for breakfast and lunch for school students–let alone for illegal immigrants at school. Now, 1 in 7 Americans are on food stamps, with the Obama administration trying to raise the headcount with aggressive advertising and ‘teaming up’ with Mexico’s President Calderon to urge ‘illegal immigrants’ to sign up for them too.
• Having, for example, 86 pregnant teenage girls all in one Memphis high school was unimaginable in 1929, as large, working nuclear families, moral codes, and churches to prevent this kind of tragedy were ‘the norm.’
• Today new studies show that almost 20% of American children under age 18 are obese, and therefore prone to suffer pre-diabetes, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease. Even worse, by 2020 experts predict that 52% of the adult population of America will have either pre-diabetes or diabetes–the cost of which would crater public assistance programs.
• In 1929 there was no federal disability program. Today almost 11 million Americans are on disability–more than the population of 39 of the 50 states. This is far worse than the welfare or unemployment rolls, because unlike welfare and unemployment that have time limits for coverage-disability is forever. And the program has exploded, as in 1967 the ratio of workers to disabled was 41 to 1, as of June 2012 it is now 16 to 1, a rate which is impossible to to sustain.
• In 1929, our education system that was the envy of the world, and today even though we ‘invest’ the most, we get among the worst results, because teachers ‘unions’ are in charge, instead of parents. High school students are graduating with few [marketable] skills, which qualify them for low paying manufacturing jobs that no longer exist in the U.S., but in China and India. What will this workforce do for the rest of their lives?
• When the federal income tax was started in 1913 it left the average American untouched, as we had a mostly ‘cash’ society, and only the richest 350,000 Americans paid a 2% income tax. The average American now works until April 12th just to pay his or her taxes.

Who is responsible?

Nearly everyone who has voted over the past 50 years and the ‘mainstream media.’

While politicians from both sides of the aisle have been using legislation and the public treasury to curry favor with their [evolving] voter base to gain reelection, by showering them with government programs, while simultaneously ‘kicking the can down the road’ to avoid the politically unpleasant act of fiscal integrity to curtail this mounting, unsustainable cost.

The size of these programs has ballooned, where now 47 percent of Americans are receiving some sort of government handout, creating a ‘built-in’ conflict of interest with the remaining 53 percent of Americans whose taxes are funding the increasing national debt supporting it.

As Democrats, who are generally in favor of ‘tax and spend’ represent about 30 percent of the electorate, and Republican’s who are generally fiscally conservative represent 30 percent also, with remaining 40 percent Independents–how did we get into this predicament?

Until just 15 years ago, most people got their news from ABC, NBC and CBS, as well as large city newspapers, which were all Liberally-biased, controlled the information that reached the voters, and by acts of either commission or omission, they ‘shaped’ the story to promote expansion. They did this by becoming willing accomplices with Democrats who used ‘scare tactics’ and other propaganda with seniors, which effectively ‘electrified’ entitlement programs–now bankrupting most governments in the Western world–turning them into the ‘third rail‘ of politics, making it political suicide for Republicans to challenge Democrats in such matters.

However, since the birth of FOXNews channel 15 years ago, and the explosion of the Internet, both of which allow more and more people access to facts, and a counter-balanced commentary, the traditional role of the mainstream media has been severely curtailed.

Now that enough people are aware of our countries’ dire fiscal situation–from the application and protection of ‘Big Government’ Liberal ideology over the past 50 years, and more particularly since the inauguration of Barack Obama–they are realizing why the November 6th presidential and Congressional elections are so important to the very continued existence of the United States of America–they are likely the last chance to reform and correct these iniquities, before the ‘inflection point’ of the beneficiaries, perversely giving them electoral control over spending money from a Treasury to which they no longer make deposits.

As such, only now are these critical issues being openly confronted by the Conservative leadership in the Republican Party during the national convention in Tampa–because Democrats won’t–ever–they haven’t even delivered a budget [that got a single ‘Yea’ vote] since 2009.

There is a common sense collection of unavoidable solutions to avoid disaster, beginning with returning the scope and power of the government to that specified in the Constitution, a greatly reduced flat tax that eliminates most loopholes and subsidies, returning most federal government oversight functions to the states, while privatizing those that remain–except for DOD, DOJ and State Department.

Then institute badly needed entitlement reforms; eliminate public unions and recalibrate public employee benefit programs to be in parity with the private sector; tort reform; eliminate or streamline regulations to promote business and job creation; and immediately focus on fossil fuel exploration, drilling and mining to restart our economy and dramatically lower fuel cost.

Finally, after repealing Obamacare, replace it with a highly efficient, patient/doctor oriented plan.

The hard facts make it clear that America needs to take a sharp ‘Right’ turn, in order to avoid what would most likely be our last ‘Great Depression’–and thankfully, a majority of ‘likely voters’ know it.