Johnny, how many times have I told you to clean up this mess?

     How long have you known this assignment was due tomorrow?
     If you had changed the oil in your car when it was due, it wouldn't be broke now. Now the entire engine needs to be replaced. You can't just add a little oil now—it's too late! Whose going to pay to fix it?

     If we are truly going to fix it, we're all going to pay. If we are going to attempt to patch it yet again, the Democrats want the Republicans to pay by taxing the "rich." To fix the deficit problem, the Republicans want the Democrats to cut spending on programs designed to help the "poor." Sounds fair doesn't it? Sounds fair to the rich if cut out spending on the poor. Sounds fair to the poor if you use some (or all) of the money the rich have to provide benefits for the poor.
     The politicians are divided into two camps. They're stalling now—but the homework is due. We've known for years that the money jar was emptying faster than it was filling. In fact, the only thing remaining in the money jar is I.O.U.s. There isn't time to do the work that's required. They are going to take short cuts, only do half the work needed and they'll still get out in time to play. They know the work isn't going to be completed. They know it will not get an "A." In fact, the only way they will even get a passing grade is if the country will grade them on the curve—their accomplishments have been less than spectacular for years. We have come to be less than satisfied with Johnny's scores. The politicians will pass into yet another term, because we have been convinced their task is too great. Let's all compromise and get back to playtime.
     When does it stop? When do we put our foot down and fix things for society's sake, in everyone's best interest, and "man-up" to the task? We broke the system because we neglected it. Now the engine needs to be replaced.
     They're pussy footin' around. We're pussy footin' around. Shoot! I won't even say it out loud with the words that describe what I'm really talking about. Our economy is not ailing—it's all but dead. In fact, I pronounce it DEAD! Time of death, July 2011.
     Kiss the Great Society good-bye. Mourn the passing of the New Deal. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal might have worked if it hadn't morphed from the "3 Rs", Relief, Recovery, and Reform, to an uncompleted program that let "Reform" slide because it was too difficult a task to face. "There will be no uncomfortable, uneasy, unpopular change on my watch," cried the politicians in office at the time. Seventy-five years later, the politician's faces have changed, the problem is still with us, only it looms uglier and larger than before. Before it was referred to as the Great Depression. What will we call this?
     Now is the time? NO! Then was the time we should have done what was required to remedy our economic programs. Not with the 3 Rs but the 3 Ss—Stop (spending), Save (money), and Share (share the responsibility, the burden, and eventually, our society).
     Talk is not cheap, it is costly. While we talk, the patient will surely die. We must act, swiftly and decisively.No more half measures. We must fix it now, once and for all. If we don't, it will fix itself and when the fix comes about, you won't like it.