A few weeks ago, this thought came to me:

We've lived too long under the government we deserve. It's time to give ourselves the government our GRANDCHILDREN deserve!

You see, for too many years, we have operated our government on the "play now, pay later" principle. Debt has seldom been taken seriously, as we feel that we can simply repay the money we're borrowing at some esoteric later time.

But it doesn't take a great economist's mind to see the flaw in this. If our government is living every year on borrowed money, eventually our debts will catch up to us. In common terms, if you have a $45,000/year salary, you can only live on a $50,000/year budget for so long.

So much talk is spent on the environment and preserving it for future generations. We talk about leaving estates and trust funds for our children as well. But we remain remarkably silent when we are talking about the ultimate trust fund, our federal government.

On the road to a fiscal balance, we ultimately have two choices: either raise our taxes to cover all of the programs we insist on having, or reduce spending to less than what is brought in. The former course may sound the more appealing, but who should we raise taxes on? Many will argue that they could fairly be raised on the wealthy, and indeed it's hard to feel too much sympathy for a guy with a $5 million yacht, but one must remember the jobs that guy with the $5 million yacht often provides.

It is no credit to be conservative with one's own money. We have self interest guiding our buying principles. When we are conservative with others' money, then we can consider ourselves to be good stewards. And our legislators and leaders are stewards of a public trust, and as such, conservators of the money of others. As such, they owe it to their constituents to lead with sound economic principles, and to provide accountability for the money that is spent.

My generation, the generation known as X, has inherited the debt of generations before us. But it is time to echo the words of former President Harry S. Truman in saying, "the buck stops HERE!" We cannot resurrect the dead; we cannot rectify the mistakes of the past. But we should not continue to make those mistakes into the future. We owe it to our grandchildren, and to our grandchildren's grandchildren, to NOT leave them saddled with enormous debt from our financial recklessness. It is time, no, PAST time, to give them the government they deserve!