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I
see it in the hundreds of emails I get a week. ‘I worry about our
future’, they say. Some are talking about their immediate future – their
jobs, their mortgages, their businesses. Others are talking about the
future of America. Some are specific, some are general.
But you don’t have to read my email box to see it. It is everywhere:
weariness and worry. You can see it in the deflated shoulders of the man
exhausted from weeks of job-searching, the empty eyes of a woman awake
too many nights wondering how to make the mortgage payment, the creased
brow of a father preparing to tell his daughter to defer the college
acceptance letter.
America is weary from the relatively sudden realization that what we
silently, and perhaps reflexively, relied on is not as stable as we
thought - the worth of our home, our plan for retirement, the permanence
of our job. Over the last year, even on the best of days and even for
those of us in the best of circumstances, we carry weariness.
"We
don’t need our government to back our warranties or run our
companies." |
This week, I found myself wondering: “Has
the best of America passed us by?” After all, look at where we are
today. Americans today enjoy the finest quality of life. We read
breaking news from halfway around the world within minutes, we take
digital pictures with our cell phones, and we shop online with the click
of a button. Our cars are heated in the winter and cooled in the summer
and many of them give us turn-by-turn directions to our destination. The
shelves of our grocery stores are stocked with fifty types of cereals
and a couple dozen flavors of ice cream.
We communicate by phone, fax, email, instant message, text message,
video teleconference and social networking. We have YouTube, eBay,
iPhones and TiVo. In the middle of the night when there is an urgent
medical situation, we have access to emergency rooms - and the next
morning, we can seek out doctors from an amazing array of specialties.
We have public libraries, public parks, and public utilities. Our
children are vaccinated, they carry cell phones, and many will attend
college. We vacation. We have hobbies. And, when we want a hamburger we
choose from McDonald’s, Burger King, Five Guys, Wendy’s, Hardee’s, and
another half dozen options depending on where we are … and we can order
that burger without even getting out of our car.
Two hundred years ago, our everyday lives would have been unfathomable
to everyday Americans. But most days, we don’t find those things to be
remarkable at all.
So has the best of America passed us by? Somewhere along the line did we
hit our peak?
At a time when it seems so hard to believe in ourselves, it’s important
to take a look at where we have been in the last two hundred years. From
a group of agricultural communities we built the largest and most
technologically powerful economy in the world. From a nation of
immigrants and frontiersmen traveling with all of their worldly
possessions, we become the wealthiest nation in the world. From a
militia of countrymen with muskets, we developed the most sophisticated
and specialized military in the world. From a group of thirteen
loosely-affiliated colonies, we became the oldest continuing democracy
in the world.
We are the people that invented the lightbulb, the telephone, the
computer, and the artificial heart. We are the people that pioneered the
automobile, the train, and the airplane. We put a man on the moon. We
discovered DNA. We built the finest universities, a rich and robust
legal system, and a vibrant and enduring political process. We have vast
natural resources, highly productive farmlands, and astonishingly
diverse cultures. We built baseball out of immigrant traditions and the
internet out of dorm rooms. We are a nation where the children of
illiterate parents can grow up to be pediatric neurosurgeons. We are
free to worship, free to speak, free to assemble. We are extraordinary.
How did we become the greatest nation in the world?
It was our people. It was our ingenuity, our hard work. It was us
banking on ourselves and believing in ourselves. We believed we could
build a nation not of kings but of men. We did it. We believed we could
be the industrial and technological leader of the world. We did it. We
believed we could put a man on the moon. We did it.
Today, Americans are scared and shaken, and we’ve lost some confidence
in ourselves. Especially because of this, we want so badly to believe in
our leaders in Washington. We want to believe that there are wise and
thoughtful men and women at the helm of our nation. Perhaps we’ve
convinced ourselves that it was the wisdom of sage elites that guided
previous generations rather than wisdom of the American people. But it
us – not our government - that we need to believe in.
We don’t need our government to back our warranties, to run our
companies, or to redistribute our paychecks. We don’t need more
government; we need less government and more efficient government. The
American people have a brilliant and enduring history of overcoming
challenge. We – the people – are our greatest hope for the future. It is
our ingenuity and hard work that will rebuild our economy.
We may worry about the America of today, but we believe in the America
of tomorrow. We are not the generation that will look into the eyes of
our children and say, “The best has passed us by”. It is not our nature.
It is not who we are. It is not American.
You're Invited:
In
today’s economy, many Americans are searching for ways to save and make
the most out of the money they have. Managing your money is never an
easy task, but now more than ever, it is important to make sure every
dollar counts. Even in these times of economic uncertainty, you can be
confident in your personal finances by leaning how best to plan, save,
and manage your debt and income.
My office is hosting two Financial
Smarts Workshops in both Chesapeake and Chesterfield to help you better
manage your money so you can reach your short and long-term financial
goals. Representatives from Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the
Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation (FDIC) have been invited to
provide attendees with information on relevant financial topics.
Topics of
the Financial Smart Workshop will include:
-
Obtaining your free credit report
-
Debt
reduction strategies
-
Maintaining mortgage payments and avoiding foreclosure
-
Creating
a budget to meet your financial goals
-
Saving
money and planning for retirement
Chesapeake Financial Smarts Workshop
will be held Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 from 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m., with
check-in starting at 6:45 p.m., at the Dr. Clarence V. Cuffee Community
Center Club Room, 2019 Windy Road, in Chesapeake, Virginia 23324.
Chesterfield Financial Smarts Workshop
will be held Thursday, May 7th, 2009 from 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m., with
check-in starting at 6:45 p.m., at John Tyler Community College, Bird
Hall – B124, 13101 Jefferson Davis Highway, in Chester, Virginia.
You can
visit my website at
http://www.forbes.house.gov/ConstituentServices/events.htm for more
information on each event, or to register to attend. I hope you will be
able to join us at one of our Financial Smarts Workshops. |