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Show THE VOICE OF BUSINESS 1 9 - a tfime tfor political coeffien By Richard L. Lenl.er, Pres.dent Chamber f Commerce of the United States A new year, a new decade, and a chance to make a fresh start. Heaven knows we need it. But let's not delude ourselves into believing we can escape our problems by making a clean break with the past; that we can, in the words of America's famous poet, Robert Frost, ... "...get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over..." We cannot. What's done is done. Now we must live with the legacy of our past, and of our mistakes, of which we have made quite a few. Those mistakes will weigh heavily upon us during the 1980's-a decade that already promises to be difficult, if not dangerous. We should be confronting the new challenges with a dynamic economy; instead, we risk falling into the same trap of great athletes who live off yesterday's glories, laugh at tomorrow, refuse to train and carouse into the wee hours each morning. When the moment of truth arrives, the old heros can no longer deliver. They have grown too flabby to compete, perhaps too satisfied to even care. , America need not go that route, but the risk is real if we continue abusing our economy as we have. Actually, abuse is probably too mild a description for policies that have led to: a quadrupling of the federal budget since 1962. ..a doubling of the national debt in just the past eight years. ..a budget that involves spending more than $1 million a minute in 1980. ..regulations that have multiplied out of control. ..a trade balance that has been in the red for 42 straight months. ..a tax system that discourages incentives, personal savings, sav-ings, risk-taking and investment, while encouraging idleness, consumtion and mediocrity, and that combines with inflation in-flation to provide windfall revenues to the governments by automatically pushing more and more Americans into steeper tax brackets. ..and, of course, a double-digit rate of inflation that is destroying the value of our currency and lowering our standard of living. Ironically, these policies are always promoted under the guise of "helping" people of modest means and of extending exten-ding their "rights." But look what's happened to our rights in terms of individual in-dividual freedom. In 1980, the average American -will have to work equivalent of nearly five months ju pay his taxes. The average per, share of the national debt and o obligations already run up by federal government has now rta $46,000. There is one hopefuTsign emer from this mess : The growing com that fog-bound thinking in Waahioj D.C., is, in fact, the principal soun our economic problems. Unfortum many politicians know what they doing is wrong, but they cannot themselves. They suffer from Poto Fever, from an addiction to the p that comes from being able to k votes by spending other peoples mo That is why the great eccw challenge of the 1960's our abilit restore real economic growth and n headway against the growing probj of inflation, recession, taxation, rtj tion and energy shortageF: ultimately be determined by the ingness of individual American engage in decisive political action, election of 1980 offers an ideal tin begin, and there are a number of tt you can do. You can learn about the issues. 1 accounts in your local newspaper a national magazines. Check with p you may belong to for informa Then take a position and commun it to your elected represents: Should you find your representi favor more government and highe es, be sure to tell them you will against them and might even against them in future elections. Speak out for your beliefs to othe well. Let your friends, neighbors, media and elected representativt all levels know that we all have 1 1 mon stake in slowing the grcwi government. Your voice will be stronger if you join a sympe'J group active in politics. It couid trade or industry group, a 1 chamber, a Polictical Action Coc tee, the political party of your chotc a particular candidate you admire Ultimately, of course you become a candidate yourself. Whs: you do, and however you do it, t make up your mind that tfcis'jar will take a stand and make a ference? Why not ensure that you : have to hear your children ask: "Why didn't you tell us?", or worse. .."Why didn't you care?" |