Twenty-seven months ago, Barack Obama was elected President on the desire for change and the knowledge that we needed to get our country back on track.  In the mid-term elections last fall, the tide changed again and swept Republicans into office in record numbers. 

How is all that change working out for you?

Here’s the cold hard truth:  It’s time for US (you and me) to effect “the change” that we thought we voted for, since NEITHER political party appears not to have the chops to do it.

We, as a country, need to face up to the facts that our country is headed for fiscal disaster and that we ALL will have to give up something if we really want to continue living in the “land of the free and home of the brave.” 

Here are five things we need to do today to get our country back on track…

• Hold your elected representatives responsible for government waste and over-spending. Tell them that you will support necessary cuts in the budget and learn to live within your means as soon as they learn to live within the taxpayer’s means.  Also remind them that they are NOT elected for life and can be removed from office if they don’t stop spending. 

• Demand a fairer tax code.  Stop beating up on “the rich” or as politicians love to call them “millionaires and billionaires.”  (No one earning $250,000 a year, by any standards known to man, qualifies as a “millionaire.) 

The real millionaires and billionaires hire lawyers and accountants to make sure they don’t pay their full share because the current tax code is riddled with loopholes allowing them to legally underpay.

A flat tax with no deductions and lower rates would absolutely force everyone to pay what they owe and help fill the government’s coffers. 

By the way, since too many Americans get their news from Comedy Central, you probably missed the story about General Electric that not only paid NO taxes in 2010 but managed to claim a $3.2 billion tax benefit!  Disgusting.  And GE is only one of many.

• Tell Washington to stop over-regulating business, making it impossible for companies to expand and hire or for people to even start new businesses. We are allowing government wonks to shut down our engine of growth with “monkey wrench” rules and regulations that strangle entrepreneurs.

• Abolish the Federal Reserve.  It has been the root cause of all booms and busts since its founding in 1913 and…believe it or not…answers to NO ONE!  Learn more about it by reading “The Creature From Jekyll Island” by G. Edward Griffin.

• Face up to the fact that we can no longer afford the status quo for future generations that currently exists with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  (Some seniors are the worst offenders of this.)  No one wants to pull the rug out from under current recipients.  But we MUST change the formula going forward. 

We need to return to the concept of self-reliance and stop relying on the government for goodies.  The goodies cost more than we can afford. 

America did not become the strongest and richest country in the world by coddling its citizens or allowing its population to take from others what they themselves did not earn. 

America became great because it “governed best by governing least.”

The 20^th Century slowly, but relentlessly, destroyed our work ethic, our desire to help one another without government intervention and our own internal creativity replacing these with the quick fix, the POLITICALLY correct and the morally bankrupt idea that everything is a right and not a privilege.

Our ONLY right is that of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It strikes me that we’ve had a lot of “rights” lately but precious little happiness.