Tamara Shayne Kagel made waves recently when she wrote a column in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles titled “I Don’t Want to Date a Republican.” Clarifying her fears, she pondered with horror: “What if I have Republican babies?” Now smitten, she’s had to Think Again.

Having crossed the partisan Rubicon from insularity to open-mindedness, Kagel says she now respects and admires her boyfriend who, she acknowledges, “values helping the poor as much as I do -- just in a different way.”

To arrive at this tolerant Zen state, Kagel recalibrated her moral compass, the antidote social psychologist Jonathan Haidt advocates in “The Righteous Mind -- Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.”  Haidt cautions, “Beware of anyone who insists there is one true morality for all people, times, and places.” Comedian Steven Colbert didn’t buy Haidt’s thesis insisting “not just that I’m right; almost more importantly is that you are wrong.“

Last week, as if aping Colbert, many media, academic and political elites insisted opponents of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) were villainous and treacherous, including Supreme Court justices who might rule the law unconstitutional. Hardball’s Chris Matthews compared Chief Justice Roberts to the judge who upheld the Fugitive Slave Act, but after Roberts became the swing vote, he seemed to morph from Darth Vader into Luke Skywalker.

Disturbed by this Star Wars mentality, polls show public confidence in media and government at record lows. This week’s Rasmussen survey of Supreme Court perceptions confirmed the widening gap between the political class and mainstream voters -- the Court’s favorability doubled from 27 to 55 percent among the political class but dropped from 34 to 22 percent among mainstream voters.

Every American wants our health care system to be more efficient, affordable and accessible. As world-class consumers, we expect cost containment, improved quality and more choices -- we get that in our cell phones, why not our healthcare? We’ve watched Apple compete by continuously innovating, creating new markets and must-have products at prices unimaginable a decade ago. Meanwhile, market entrants like Android offer choices to consumers for whom a phone (never mind an iPhone) was previously unaffordable. 

Not surprisingly, Americans rejected government-centric solutions that interposed Washington bureaucrats between doctors and patients and did little to address the healthcare cost explosion. Nevertheless, à la Colbert, lawmakers insisted they were right and opponents weren’t merely wrong, but evil. Despite public outrage, Congress passed the ACA on a party-line vote aided by political payoffs, accounting gimmicks, deceptive language, and parliamentary trickeries never before used for such far-reaching legislation.

As unsettling is the perception that last week’s Supreme Court ruling -- which rewrote the ACA in order to find it constitutional and used reasoning that politically-diverse legal experts regard as flimsy -- was made to protect the Court’s legitimacy in the eyes of those who define illegitimacy as anything with which they disagree. If political calculations factored into Court deliberations, doesn’t that undermine judicial integrity?

Most importantly, two years into the 2,409 page law and 4,103 pages of associated regulations, we know it’s “dreadful public policy,” as non-partisan Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson wrote: Its “attempt to achieve universal health insurance coverage is a massive feat of social engineering that, by its sweeping nature, weakens the economic recovery and antagonizes millions of people.”

Moreover, its promises are false: health insurance premiums have risen $2,200, not declined by $2,500; official cost estimates nearly doubled with further increases expected, thus increasing the deficit; and millions of Americans will lose their insurance and doctors as companies dump workers into government health exchanges to avoid escalating healthcare expenses.

Now consider the moral travesties.  Not only does the law perpetuate the largest transfer of wealth from the young to the older in world history, it promises a quantity and quality of care it can’t deliver while stifling the medical innovation on which the world depends for continuously improving health outcomes.

The story of Deamonte Driver, a 12-year old Medicaid beneficiary, is instructive. Unable to secure appropriate and timely treatment, he died of an infection that started with an abscessed tooth -- not because he was uninsured, but because he was government-insured.

The ACA’s proponents won’t mention these fiscal, economic and moral challenges.  Like used car salesmen, they tout loss leaders (universal coverage and 26-year olds on parents’ plans) and free extras (contraception) – all attainable with cheaper and less disruptive policies like tax credits and high-risk pools.  How do we separate the facts from the sales pitch, and if the deal is so good, why do the well-connected get waivers?

With so much at stake, lawmakers must recalibrate their moral compasses. Having done so, Kagel personifies Haidt’s message that love and mutual respect engender the willingness to see those with opposing views generously, improving everyone’s outcomes.

If elected leaders won’t love and respect us, we must Think Again in November.

Last week after his criminal trial ended with a hung jury, John Edwards proclaimed hopefully, “I don’t think God is through with me,” as he planted the seeds for his comeback. Projecting the false modesty and manufactured authenticity that vaulted the one-term Senator toward the Presidency, Edwards personifies Graucho Marx’s maxim that “the secret to life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

In response to Edwards, I imagined a collective uproar: “Think Again, John -- the jig is up!” As Edwards exits stage left, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker takes center stage.  He, along with brave governors in New Jersey, Indiana, South Carolina, Louisiana, and possibly even New York, represent a new breed of leader emboldened to end public sector unions’ stranglehold on our governments and economy.

Putting aside Edwards’ despicable personal conduct, he is emblematic of the corrupt patronage system that Governor Scott Walker ended in Wisconsin -- the one that allows government unions to cement relationships with self-serving politicians, leaving taxpayers unrepresented and rendering many states insolvent.  By voting decisively to retain Walker (the only US governor to survive a recall), Cheeseheads declared the jig is finally up for this brand of special-interest cronyism and the politicians who perpetuate it – at least in Wisconsin.

The truth is, public-sector unions don’t serve a compelling social need since governments don’t exploit labor for profits. Furthermore, as Franklin Roosevelt cautioned, “the process of collective bargaining…. cannot be transplanted into the public service...[without risking] paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it.” Realizing this, President Carter reduced collective-bargaining rights for federal employees by signing the Civil Service Reform Act.

It’s ironic that public sector unions met their match in Wisconsin, the birthplace of American progressivism and public sector unionism where roughly two-thirds of voters either are or are related to union members.  Now, progressive Wisconsin is proof that the crisis of the modern entitlement state being played out worldwide -- from the Eurozone to California -- doesn’t have to be a Greek tragedy.

In Wisconsin, even union sympathizers realize everyone is ill served when the government can't meet its obligations.  They know the promises politicians make far exceed our ability to pay and, watching Europe implode from the same disorder, realize there is only one choice -- reduced yet sustainable government or bankruptcy. Wisconsin voted for balance knowing the essential first step on the path to prosperity and opportunity is for governments to recover fiscal soundness. 

That was Walker’s pledge in 2010. Facing the fourth highest tax burden in the country and determined to reverse Wisconsin’s $3.6 billion deficit without raising taxes or firing workers, Walker’s reforms disallowed collective bargaining for public-employee unions (except police and firefighters).  No longer can unions negotiate their taxpayer-funded benefits with politicians they helped elect using mandatory dues. Additionally, Walker asked government employees to contribute modestly more to their health and retirement benefits. Even after these reforms, Wisconsin workers enjoy “a combined salary-benefits compensation premium of around 22 percent over private sector workers,” according to an American Enterprise Institute study released last month.

Though modest, the unions and their allies reacted ferociously to these reforms, like a mama bear defending her cub. They captured national attention with protests, runaway state senators, legal challenges and state senator recall elections. Despite their efforts, they couldn’t overcome the will of the people -- to keep the reforms.

That’s because Walker’s reforms are succeeding: The budget has a $150 million surplus; property taxes are lower; the unemployment rate is 6.8 percent (the lowest since 2008 and well below the national average); the private sector created 26,000 jobs in 2011; and savings realized by school districts have preserved jobs and educational programming. Most encouraging, according to a Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce survey in May, 73 percent of employers predicted moderate to good business growth and more than half plan to expand operations within two years – the highest rate in a decade.

No wonder one-third of union members voted for Walker, according to exit polls. Seeing union policies drain government finances, endanger vital government services, and undermine their own jobs and benefits, why would union members want to pay their dues? Now that they have the option not to, tens of thousands have opted out. Perhaps this is the best outcome of all, for civil society is healthier when government employees believe they’re on the same side as taxpayers.

As CS Lewis said, “We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”

Though it’s too late for Edwards, other self-proclaimed “progressives” must Think Again – good policy makes great politics.

As if accompanying Dorothy en route to the Emerald City of Oz, Americans seek a green wizard to fulfill our hearts’ desires -- a world powered by renewable energies like solar, wind and bio-fuels.  Bedazzled by Glenda the Good Witch’s solar-powered ruby slippers, we want the green-brick-road to lead us to a cleaner energy future. 

However, without Auntie Em to awaken us to reality, Americans must Think Again. Though cast as the Wicked Witch of the West, over the last decade the conventional energy industry has revolutionized America’s energy outlook.  Today we’re the most energy-endowed nation in the world, with enough clean, reliable, abundant, and cheap natural gas to last for generations. 

It’s “like adding another Venezuela or Kuwait by 2020”, according to Pulitzer-prize winning energy expert Daniel Yergin who believes the world energy map now centers on North America, not the Middle East. Energy consultant Wood Mackenzie estimates that tapping new reserves would generate one million jobs by 2018 and generate $803 billion in governmental revenue through 2030. Additionally, these new extraction technologies require far fewer wells, though they present fresh environmental challenges that several states (including Colorado) have addressed with new regulations to protect the environment and secure water supplies. 

Thus, rather than crucify the conventional energy industry, we should celebrate the entrepreneurialism and technological ingenuity that’s enabled the US to become a net energy exporter for the first time since 1949. The government need only permit development of new reserves -- not subsidize -- to further American energy independence, fuel our vehicles, lower energy costs and reap economic gains.

Meanwhile, promoters of green energy policies continue to argue that “investments” in renewable energies are environmental and job-creation boons for America, though our journey along the green-brick-road proves otherwise. Whether evaluating wind power in tornado-swept Kansas or solar energy in sunny California, renewable technologies are woefully uneconomical, wickedly unreliable and surprisingly unsound environmentally.

It’s understandable Americans dream green, considering we were told in 2008 that by investing $150 billion over the next decade in renewable energies, we’d reap five million new jobs.  But as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers noted, “The government is a crappy venture capitalist”.  That’s because lobbying prowess and political viability outweigh economic viability when government picks winners and losers. 

After “investing” $110 billion since 2009, the sector is littered with taxpayer backed, bankrupt companies like Solyndra, Beacon Power, and Ener1, all of which paid bonuses before going under. Reuters reported last month “the wind industry… has shed 10,000 jobs since 2009 even as the energy capacity of wind farms has nearly doubled”… while the demonized “oil and gas industry added 75,000 jobs.”

The truth is, industries that aren’t economically viable don’t create real jobs, and those that are viable, don’t need subsidies. Plagued by competitive disadvantages like sun and wind intermittency, and expensive land, capital, transmission and backup capacity, these technologies are uncompetitive, small market players and remain subsidy-dependent.

Despite receiving 53.5 percent of federal financial support for the electric power sector, wind and solar supply only four percent of US power at a cost 100-300 percent more than conventional sources, according to the Energy Information Administration. A University of Wyoming study notes that because green policies increase prices, the “economic benefits derived from building renewable energy facilities in the short-run are more than offset by losses in economic output and employment”, thus hurting the poorest and most vulnerable.

Additionally, given renewables’ green patina, many don’t appreciate their adverse environmental impacts beyond the eyesore, noise, water usage, and wildlife destruction. Called “energy sprawl” by the Nature Conservancy, renewable energies require vastly more land while producing significantly less energy than conventional energy.  Most disconcerting, their incurable intermittency requires utilities to rely on conventional power to cycle up when there’s no wind or sun, and power down when there is, thus diminishing carbon reduction advantages.

If policymakers weren’t brainless scarecrows, cowardly lions and heartless tin men, they’d adopt Bill Gates’ proposition that cheap energy is “a fantastic vaccine” for the economy.  That’s what Americans deserve – a booster shot to deliver authentic solutions, real jobs and genuine economic growth. Moving beyond fossil fuels will happen eventually when superior and affordable energies are scaled for mass use.

Energy development isn’t a zero sum game, as the Wyoming study concludes: “Environmentally responsible development of fossil fuel resources could be complementary with renewable energy development, creating jobs and generating tax revenues to ensure a robust economy capable of creating and funding innovative renewable energy technologies of the future.”

Given our economic straits and the remoteness of the green dream, the underlying question is how much more are Americans willing to pay to harness wind and sun. Isn’t it time to demand that our leaders propose energy solutions based not on ideology but on how to best guarantee prosperity for generations of Americans?   

Think Again – a secure, affordable and environmentally sound energy future is not over the rainbow.

What do you get when you cross George Orwell’s Animal Farm with John Belushi’s Animal House? Government Gone Wild! 

If you assume that’s the title of a porn movie about U.S. secret service agents cavorting with prostitutes in foreign countries, or employees of the U.S. Government Services Administration (the GSA manages federally-owned property) whooping it up in Las Vegas at taxpayers’ expense, Think Again.

The hard truth is that the larger government grows, the more Orwellian and “Animal House” its conduct. Belushi’s character “Bluto” exercised no greater restraint around free beer than did GSA Regional Director Neely and his employees, whose exploits at their $823,000 Las Vegas “team-building” soirée were videotaped, only to dominate newscasts this month. Bluto couldn’t have carpe diem-ed on his parents’ allowance better than Neely who wrote in an invitation to personal friends: “We’ll pick up the room tab…. I know I’m bad, but…why not enjoy it while we have it….Ain’t gonna last forever.”  

Since government depends on resources drawn from the real economy, consider these facts: after the GSA’s Inspector-General reported Neely’s misconduct, Neely still received a 2011 bonus; the average GSA salary is nearly $92,000, $40,000 more than median household income; and the GSA’s budget rose 119 percent in 2011.  Furthermore, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reported this January that federal employees enjoy greater job security and earn significantly higher compensation compared to private-sector workers.

Having worked in a large bureaucracy (the World Bank), I believe most public servants are decent, skilled, and dedicated, though rarely are “per diem” allowances unspent, or self-justifications un-uttered. It’s a truism that people won’t spend other people’s money as carefully as they spend their own. Unlike household budgets that strive to boost savings by minimizing expenses, government bureaucracies spend what they’re given while justifying more for next year.  They also lack the expertise and market discipline to “invest” wisely, evidenced by “green investments” in now-bankrupt companies like Solyndra.

Here's the ultimate question: why transfer more money from the real economy to those who are intrinsically more wasteful, negligent and indifferent to its ultimate good? To curb Bluto-like behavior, voters mustn’t allow irresponsible conduct they wouldn’t otherwise tolerate.  If your child spent irresponsibly while racking up credit-card debts, wouldn’t you confiscate his card?  Good governance, like good parenting, means establishing and enforcing reasonable limits.

Yet, politicians charged with stewarding America’s finances have acted like the pigs in Animal Farm who pronounced “all animals are equal, except some are more equal than others.”  Exempted from the self-discipline and frugality associated with American Exceptionalism and prosperity, they’ve presided over the greatest scandal -- an explosion of government, an avalanche of debt and the mugging of our children’s future.

April 29^th marks the third consecutive year in which the Senate hasn’t passed a budget. Vested with the authority to confront and steer America through fiscal problems, the Senators’ inaction reflects the ultimate “piggish” dereliction of duty.  It’s also illegal, though conveniently, there’s no penalty for breaking the 1974 Budget Act. 

Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad said last year, “History is going to judge whether we have the courage, character, and the vision to stand up for America’s future. Those who take a walk, those who turn away, those who don’t have the gumption to stand up, are going to be judged very, very harshly.”  Though Conrad intended to pass a budget resolution this month, he was over-ruled by Senate leadership. Believing they can evade electoral consequences by not voting on difficult budget matters, they mirror the corrupt, greedy, and myopic leadership of the pigs in Animal Farm.

Economist Milton Friedman, one of America’s greatest apostles for freedom and free markets, believed politicians are finger-in-the-wind types who can be trained: “The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.  Unless it’s politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either.”

In other words, the onus is on us. Politicians will concern themselves with our interests only if they think we care. If we don’t care that they’ve violated the law by refusing to adopt a budget, and that they’ve spent us $16 trillion into debt, what do we care about? 

Demand accountability and restraint, and don’t allow the word trillion to be normalized, after all, a trillion hours ago dinosaurs roamed the earth!  Don’t wait for the right people to get elected; remember, Bluto became a US Senator despite his 0.0 GPA. It’s a basic rule of life -- If we tolerate out-of-control Animal House behavior and indifferent Animal Farm attitudes, we’ll just get more of it.

Think Again. It’s not only a fiscal imperative -- it’s a moral one.

“The higher up in the tree the monkey goes, the more of his backside that shows,” goes the maxim. It would be hard to climb higher than Warren Buffett, the world's most celebrated investor. However, as the namesake of the Buffett Rule that imposes higher tax rates on the wealthy, Buffett and his backside dangle precariously “out on a limb.”

Residing atop Buffett's tree is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, known to deliver the best rhetorical broadside, probably because of his broad backside. Last week, Christie buffeted Buffett, forcing him to Think Again.

After two years of traumatic budget austerity, Christie's 10 percent tax cut for all New Jerseyans is central to his fiscal revival plan. Designed to stimulate economic growth, job creation and entrepreneurialism, Christie expects Jersey's economic pie to grow so more “haves and soon-to-haves” generate more tax revenue. After eschewing Buffett's Tax, Christie challenged Buffett to put up or shut up by writing the government a check, to which Buffett conceded, “It's sort of a touching response to a $1.2 trillion deficit, isn't it? That somehow the American people will just all send in checks and take care of it?”

Perhaps unwittingly, the “Oracle of Omaha” revealed the hard truth: No reasonable amount of taxation can address the catastrophic levels of spending, deficit, debt and doubt that plague Americans.

Even the 49.5 percent of Americans who aren't currently paying federal income taxes — a status for which they're wrongly disparaged since other taxes they pay support government (state, payroll, property, sales, gas) — know that increasing tax rates on high earners won't “take care of it.” Incredibly, confiscating the taxable income of America's millionaires and billionaires would only yield $938 billion, enough to run the government for three months.

Ominously, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimates the Buffett Rule could raise $40 billion annually, chicken feed compared with our deficit and bullish considering the United Kingdom's new wealth tax generated less revenue from top earners than before its implementation.

Most insidious, a large majority of America's small businesses, the sector responsible for creating two-thirds of all new jobs since 1996, file individual (not corporate) returns, thus ensnaring them in the Buffett Rule. Imagine the surprise of the technology entrepreneur who wants to expand her business but finds herself in Buffett's tax class!

The dirty little secret is that to reduce the deficit or avoid spending cuts, we'd need a “soak the middle class” strategy. That's because 98 percent of America's taxable income is in households that earn less than $250,000. As Buffett admitted, “The purpose of the Buffett Rule is not to close the deficit gap.”

So why promote the Buffett Rule if it's economically injurious and fiscally imprudent? Because in an election year, budget gimmicks and fairness illusions trump growth, job creation, tax revenue and economic logic. This isn't tax fairness; it's tax farce.

The million-dollar question is, What is fair? Is it fairer to equitably divide a stagnant or shrinking economic pie or to grow the pie so everybody gets more, albeit unevenly?

Since first implementing the income tax a century ago, we've agreed on the latter while operating the industrialized world's most progressive tax system. According to 2009 IRS data, Americans with incomes less than $100,000 paid an average rate of 8 percent while those making more than $500,000 averaged 25 percent. Furthermore, the top “1 percent” currently pay 38 percent of America's income taxes while the top “10 percent” pay 75 percent.

But as Buffett notes, “You can do pretty dumb things when you've got a big checkbook.” The real problem isn't that Americans (rich or not) pay too few taxes; it's that government is so over-extended, it's transferring hundreds of billions of dollars to the affluent. Why should a farmer making $2.5 million be eligible for farm subsidies? Should Buffett be entitled to the same Medicare and Social Security benefits as those without corporate jets? Should wealthy backers of green energy be entitled to billions in below-market loans whether or not they're political donors?

As the president's bipartisan Debt Commission recommended, wealthy Americans shouldn't get benefits they don't need nor tax preferences that distort and undermine our economy. But withdrawing voters' goodies isn't smart politics when you're trying to secure electoral majorities. Conversely, it's politically wise to distract voters from current realities like the following: One in six Americans lives in poverty — the most since tracking began in 1959; government dependency is at an all-time high; and the percentage of Americans with a job is the lowest in decades.

Imagine the possibilities if Buffett turned his attention to the challenges of income stagnation. He already knows that American prosperity derives from entrepreneurial activity and the incentives that inspire it, having once said, “You can change behavior by incentives, but you can't usually change behavior by sermons, although people try every Sunday.”

Think Again, Warren — that's good advice.

Politicians are like New Year's revelers whose resolutions to get fit are as habitual as their unhealthy lifestyles. The most undisciplined merrymaker continually ups the weight-loss ante —10 pounds last year, 20 pounds this year — just as undisciplined politicians alleging fiscal prudence have upped their borrowing limit 4,967 percent since 1962, 67 percent since 2009.

If you thought politicians were pummeled into fiscal restraint after last summer's debt-ceiling debacle, which led to America's credit downgrade by S&P, Think Again. In fact, 2011 ended with debt reaching the new limit of $15.22 trillion compelling Treasury to request another $1.2 trillion debt ceiling increase. This time the increase will happen easily because new rules require both House and Senate disapproval to block it — not likely.

Like a long-running soap opera whose actors change though the story line doesn't, we spend $4 billion more than we have every day — and growing. Since 2008, spending skyrocketed past our historical average of 20 percent of gross domestic product to 25 percent.

The problem isn't merely the amount of debt — though as Sen. Obama asserted before voting against the 2006 debt-ceiling increase, “Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren” — it's the size of the debt relative to our economy that reflects poor economic health. With our debt-to-GDP ratio at 100.3 percent versus 69.8 percent in 2008, we're living on “borrowed” time unless politicians stop deluding themselves that a stagnant private sector can finance a growing public sector.

The eurozone crisis offers America a timely warning that the battle of the spending and debt bulge is an existential one. Europe's saga is our “Chronicle of a Death Foretold,” except America can avert doom by slashing spending levels and lifting private-sector burdens. If Sweden, Ireland and a new reform-minded Spanish government can do both — the reverse of what we've done during the Great Recession — America should, too.

Americans agree, as 71 percent told a Rasmussen poll last week that Washington should cut spending. Absent the political will to reform entitlements and lower spending to pre-2008 levels, “the country is going through one of its longest sustained periods of unhappiness and pessimism ever,” observed Democratic pollster Mark Penn.

Distracted as we are by domestic matters including the media-hyped Republican primary horse race, Americans aren't focused on the international implications of a downgraded superpower. An America in economic distress undermines our capacity to perform the valuable role we've played since World War II — to promote global economic growth and political stability, especially among the poorest nations.

America is the most important trading partner to the world, inducing countries to adopt economic freedoms that enabled our prosperity, including limited government, property rights, free trade and a stable currency. Economically free countries enjoy greater growth, opportunity, civil rights and life expectancy, as evident on the Korean Peninsula, where South Koreans have dramatically better lives than their northern cousins, and in China, where 450 million people were lifted out of poverty after economic liberalization.

America used to rank second in the Wall Street Journal/Heritage Index of Economic Freedom (behind Hong Kong) but fell to ninth this year (below Canada, Ireland and Denmark), reflecting deteriorating business freedom, increased government spending and a weaker currency. Reversing this trend is essential to growth and job creation, otherwise we risk becoming collectively poorer as the world becomes progressively dangerous.

Dictatorial regimes, strategic adversaries and state terrorism sponsors tread more carefully when America is strong; conversely appearing weak and distracted emboldens enemies, frightens allies and undermines U.S. interests. Being a downgraded superpower renders us vulnerable and less prepared for emerging global threats including: a nuclear-hungry Iran intent on Israel's destruction and the transformation of an extraordinarily volatile Middle East; a jihadist-infested nuclear Pakistan; an increasingly militarized China to whom we owe $1.1 trillion; and a nuclear North Korea whose new, 26-year-old dictator poses many challenges.

Stuffed with pork, America suffers from the economic equivalent of arteriolosclerosis, the kind that presages fiscal heart attacks. The symptoms include the loss of our AAA credit rating, fragile business confidence, economic stagnation, persistently high unemployment rates and chaotic financial markets.

Nevertheless, a coronary isn't inevitable. Bequeathing our children a weaker, divided and vulnerable America is a choice, not our destiny. America's economy is the world's largest, producing one-quarter of global GDP, thanks to a 100-year average growth rate of 3 percent. Therefore, our singular objective should be to reclaim the growth that creates jobs and opportunity, not redistribute an ever-shrinking wealth pie nor designate economic winners and losers. First, however, we must accept that even the most prosperous nation in world history can't afford the government we've acquired.

As this election year debuts, voters must implore elected officials to Think Again — return America to “fiscal fitness” or risk being “bypassed” next November. 

Unlike Jack Nicholson's mother, who never saw the irony in calling Jack a “son of a bitch,” I'm hoping you'll appreciate another delicious irony. In a keynote speech at an international economic forum, a major political leader blamed the state's heavy role in the economy for stagnation. Government, he said, should “protect the choice and property of those who willingly risk their money and reputation.”

If you're guessing the critiqued policies are in Greece, Ireland or the United States, Think Again. In fact the speaker was President Medvedev of Russia, the country whose government excesses inflicted misery and deprivation on its people.

It is poetic irony, then, to hear Medvedev wax Jeffersonian while throwing overboard the Russian autocrats who've concentrated power in the Kremlin. Medvedev knows that “the proposition that the government is always right is manifested either in corruption or benefits to ‘preferred' companies.” Medvedev says, “The Russian economy ought to be dominated by private businesses and private investors.”

That is the definition of “seeing the light!”

As astonishing is the rejection of America's founding principles of limited government and free-enterprise by politicians who've glommed onto a micro-managed government-approved “capitalism.” I'm not claiming the U.S. has morphed into Russia, only a shared lesson. Government officials are too easily captured by special interests, often ones they should be regulating and on which they lavish taxpayer-financed favors. Therefore, trusting government officials to influence the economy is mistaken and dangerous.

The ironic truth is that governmental policies to promote home ownership precipitated the financial crisis by pushing suicidal loans onto low-income people and stimulating taxpayer-backed demand for the bad loans. As a result, the government perverted the free-enterprise system and subverted everyone's economic interest, sticking taxpayers with massive losses, saddling homeowners with unfair mortgages and damaging credit markets. More ironically, we've allowed government officials to deny responsibility, blame others and even benefit personally — sounds like Russia!

Economists say there's no such thing as a free lunch, but seeming to give free lunches elects politicians who claim they can do miraculous things like create economic growth and jobs. The reality is, despite economic models showing government could create wealth by spending (“investing”, in politician-speak), the models don't reflect the complexity of a dynamic market economy where millions of decisions are made simultaneously. While government can invest at the margins in research and activities that spin off useful technologies, spending incurs an opportunity cost as taxation, borrowing and mandates undermine businesses' desire to hire and invest.

Haven't we learned the Great Depression lessons when New Deal policies initially committed these mistakes, thus prolonging economic despair? In 1939, FDR's Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau said, “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work … After eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … and an enormous debt to boot!”

Since 2008, we've spent almost $2 trillion on stimulus and recovery programs. We've enacted a too-big-to-fail policy, bailing out bankrupt banks and car companies, making taxpayers liable for reckless decision-making while penalizing disadvantaged smaller competitors who don't enjoy government backing. Cash for clunkers and the first-time homebuyers tax credit generated no incremental demand. Hundreds of new complex regulations and hidden taxes lurk in financial reform and health-care legislation with critical details left to regulators. Employers worry that hiring implies accepting costs they can't control or predict. Not surprisingly, American businesses are reluctant to invest their $2 trillion cash horde.

As Karl Marx said, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” After all this government “goodwill,” unemployment exceeds 9 percent (despite promises the rate wouldn't top 8 percent by now), economic growth is anemic, and the misery index (unemployment plus inflation rates) is at a 28-year high. Federal spending is at an unsustainable 25 percent of GDP, up from a 60-year 18 percent average, as we borrow 42 cents out of every dollar spent. With $14.3 trillion in federal debt, Americans brace for higher interest rates as creditors doubt America's ability to repay.

The role of government is not to create jobs but to facilitate an environment hospitable to the private investment that drives innovation and, ultimately, job growth. America must revert to the values that made us the most prosperous country in history — smaller government, sensible though limited regulations, a globally competitive tax burden, entrepreneurialism, equality of opportunity, an exceptional educational system, respect for private property, and individual responsibility.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen wrote, “the gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and politicians who want to rule over them may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and England during the eighteenth century.” Americans don't want to be governed from the left, the right or the center; they want to govern themselves.

There's nothing ironic about that.

In a Russian joke, there are two friendly farmers, Boris and Ivan. Both are prosperous, though Boris owns chickens and Ivan doesn't. When a genie offers Ivan anything he desires, he ponders his wish and orders, “Kill Boris' chickens!”

As Americans imbued with entrepreneurial spirit, a tradition of social mobility, and a sense of fairness and morality, we're bemused by this joke. Why didn't Ivan aspire to own chickens himself, or cows? Doesn't Ivan realize he's hurting everyone's standard of living by depriving everybody of eggs and chicken meat? Why deny opportunity to shopkeepers, butchers and restaurants — and all their employees?

By living in a zero-sum world where one can only profit at the expense of others, Ivan can't comprehend (as Americans do) that a neighbor's prosperity can enhance our lives, raise our standard of living and create economic opportunities for more people. Ingenious billionaires who developed the automobile, laptop, Facebook and iPhone were rewarded because they improved society's standard of living, not by clawing a fortune out of society's guts.

If you believe this “beggar-thy-neighbor” mentality doesn't exist in the U.S., Think Again. Economic distress creates fertile ground for “the politics of envy” allowing opportunistic politicians to distract us from real problems by accusing wealthier Americans of not paying their “fair share” and by bashing selected (poll-tested) industries. However, the “soak-the-rich” narrative is dangerously divisive, socially corrosive, economically detrimental — and untrue.

The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development studied 24 economies and concluded “Taxation is most progressively distributed in the United States.” Here, the wealthiest 10 percent (individuals and small businesses) making more than $92,400 per year pay three-quarters of the nation's income taxes, while half of Americans pay none and nearly 70 percent receive more government benefits than they've paid in.

Social justice doesn't require such a progressive system, though it allows society to express compassion for its neediest. The question is: At what point does forced redistribution of income as a means of social policy destroy individual initiative, becoming economically detrimental and socially unjust to all strata of society?

Given our economic straits, we're there. According to IRS data and based on current government spending levels, even if the government instituted a 100 percent tax on both corporate profits and incomes above $250,000 per year, it would only yield enough revenue to run the government for six months. That's because government spending has swollen to 24 percent of GDP from 18 percent in 2000.

Despite these facts, politicians promote resentment to create sympathetic voting blocks, pointing to widening income gaps between rich and poor. However, Americans don't begrudge our neighbor's success; we crave it, relying on social mobility to achieve it. While acknowledging the need for a sturdy social safety net, we know instinctively what IRS data proves — the vast majority of “the poor” do not remain poor in America.

Like an elevator, Americans ride the income ladder, from one statistical category to another. Three-quarters of Americans whose incomes were in the bottom quintile in 1975 were also in the top 40 percent during the next 16 years, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. IRS data shows that incomes of taxpayers in the bottom quintile in 1991 rose 91 percent by 2005, compared to those in the top quintile whose incomes rose only 10 percent — those in the top 5 percent actually declined by 26 percent. So much for the “rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.”

Though tax-rates (and loopholes) influence economic behavior, government revenues correlate more with economic growth. One hundred years of IRS data show the wealthy avoided higher tax-rates and supplied less tax revenue when marginal rates were higher. Irrespective of marginal rates (which have ranged between 92-28 percent since 1952) government revenues historically hovered around 18 percent of GDP. Additionally, when rates were lower, GDP growth was higher.

Therefore, America's goal should be to generate economic growth to create more jobs, meaning more taxpayers and more government revenues to pay off our debt. This requires fiscal discipline and comprehensive tax-reform including the elimination of tax loopholes and subsidies for the politically favored, and globally competitive tax-rates. Australia, Canada and Sweden just instituted similar measures resulting in material economic improvements. Why can't America?

Without such measures, the dirty little secret is that the money to pay for our bloated government (and $14.3 trillion in debt) must also come from the middle-class and future generations. That's not only an economic problem, it's a moral one when those without a voice are deprived of economic opportunity.

Abraham Lincoln encapsulated America's notion of fairness saying, “That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but ... build one for himself.”

Those who practice class warfare (and Ivan) should Think Again.

“They tried to make me go to rehab but I said no, no, no,” British singer-sensation Amy Winehouse sang before joining Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin in the “Dead at 27” Club. Seeing the media atwitter over the “Euro Crisis” makes me think Winehouse's unfortunate demise is a metaphor for what ails Europe.

Winehouse thought she didn't need treatment; similarly the new head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Largarde, fears “policy makers do not have the conviction” to “go to rehab” at this “dangerous new phase of the debt crisis.” Yet with such high stakes, European politicians must Think Again, as should Americans whose aim is to “Europeanize” America.

Like Winehouse, the eurozone (comprising 17 out of 27 European Union countries now sharing a common currency and mutual economic guarantees) is severely depressed, both economically and socially. It suffers from out-of-control addictions to big government and borrowing, has existential doubts about whether so many dissimilar countries share enough interests to fit into an economic straitjacket, and lacks the political will to address its dysfunction. More ominously, unlike the suicidal Winehouse, Europe's financial crisis threatens to pull down others like a nuclear-armed suicide bomber.

Trend-spotting soothsayers who used to boast that the Eurozone would “end American supremacy” and “run the 21st century” now seem delusional. EU policies actually impede economic growth and vitality, rendering Europe less competitive.

In the second quarter, the eurozone grew 0.7 percent, while Germany (Europe's engine) grew only 0.5 percent. Plunging business and consumer confidence further undermine growth prospects for a region desperate to ease debt burdens in the “PIIGS” countries (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain). However, despite talk to control spending and balance budgets (mostly through tax increases), nobody in Europe has a genuine growth agenda.

It's hard for Europe to grow when nearly half of Europeans are officially “dependents” and only 64 percent of working-age citizens work. Even worse, Europeans aren't having babies (European fertility rates are one-third lower than both the replacement rate and the U.S. rate), so the ratio of European workers to retirees is expected to collapse from 7-to-1 in 1960 to one-to-one by 2040. With so many 30-year-old students and 50-year-old retirees, it's no wonder the European welfare state is running out of other people's money — because it has run out of people, to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher.

Furthermore, European welfare states not only use taxpayers' money to give “free” benefits to particular groups, they require employers do the same. Not surprisingly, faced with higher labor costs, employers hire fewer workers in Europe.

The New York Times captured the crux of the crisis: Because Europeans “translated higher taxes into a cradle-to-grave safety net … governments with big budgets, falling tax revenues and aging populations are experiencing rising deficits, with more bad news ahead.” Consequently, ballooning unemployment, stagnant economies, catastrophic debt and demographic collapse threaten the European economic model.

Meanwhile, European politicians take piecemeal steps to respond to bond markets and political pressures from those who don't want to bail out their neighbors' excesses. Former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer argued, “You can't have a pension at 67 here and 55 in Greece.” Luckily, his remarks weren't made in Greece, where protesters defending their “rights” killed innocents.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus, whose country joined the EU but did not adopt the Euro, despairs that Europe's real problem is that Europeans don't value economic freedom. Rather, they “prefer leisure to work, security to risk-taking, paternalism to free markets, group entitlements to individualism and don't understand that their current behavior undermines the very institutions that made  past successes possible.”

This is the existential question: When the social institutions (family, vocation, community and faith) that drive human productivity and satisfaction become less vital, from what will life's purpose and meaning come? Not government security. A 2001 University of Michigan study (among others) showed that public-support recipients are twice as likely to feel hopeless or worthless.

It's not too late for America: We appreciate that work, parenting and community engagement, while often challenging, give our lives meaning, accomplishment, satisfaction, a sense of control and pride — necessary elements for happiness.

In 2005, after pancreatic cancer treatment, college dropout Steve Jobs addressed Stanford graduates offering advice that reflects this quintessentially American credo about work and happiness. He told them to stay hungry and to find and follow their passions because “the only way to be truly satisfied in life is to do great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” Despite failing health, Jobs is happy (as are Apple customers, employees and investors) having created the world's most innovative and valuable company, spawning industries in his wake.

If rehab could cure Jobs' illness, he would go. As America slouches toward Europe, we should Think Again and go, too.