Denial

One of the biggest problems facing most Americans is denial. Everyday people fail to take responsibility or accountability for their actions by making up excuses and denying the truth. And what’s much worse is that over time people start believing their made up stories instead of facing the consequences of the truth. People addicted to drugs or alcohol; people who are overweight; people who are lazy; people who have mental disabilities; people who drop out of school; and so on, all these people are in denial. It is much easier to make up an excuse for our mistakes, shortcomings, and faults instead of addressing them.

One of my biggest strengths is that I admit I have lots of faults. Acceptance of the truth is the only way to correct faults and to become a better person. That being said, in the past, I was one of the biggest denial and excuse makers for my faults. For example, it took me over a decade to address my alcoholism problem. We all do it; it is just a matter to what degree. For instance, procrastination is one of the biggest faults of most Americans – this is a form of denial because we tend to make excuses to put off correcting problems.

Denial is very common in politics. Republicans are in denial over many things. For example, after losing many key Senate races and the Presidency in the 2012 election, most Republicans are on record saying something to the effect that there is nothing wrong with their positions and beliefs – they simply have not conveyed that message to the public very well. In essence, this means Republicans will continue to operate in the same manner (status quo) and only work harder to convey their message to the American people. Republicans are sadly mistaken if they feel a majority of Americans are behind their message.

Recently, Democrats have demonstrated a big case of denial. Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Stenny Hoyer, and Tom Harkin have said that the Federal Government does not have a spending problem. Hoyer went further by stating that the United States has a paying problem. This is flat out denial. Think about it, if the U.S. government taxed those making over 200 thousand dollars a year at a rate of 100%, the federal government would still be operating at a deficit. Federal and state governments have poured 1 trillion dollars a year into anti-poverty programs. Yet, nearly 50 million Americans remain in poverty. One Trillion dollars is enough money for those 50 million impoverished people to collect 17,000 dollars annually (51,000 for a family of 3 – which equals the U.S. median income), and to dish out another 50 thousand dollars a year to 3 million people to work on these programs. In other words, the U.S. spends enough money on anti-poverty programs to wipe out poverty – yet 15% of Americans remain impoverished. This not only shows we have spending problem, it shows the government has a fraud, waste, and bureaucracy problem. The fact Democrats call federal spending an investment is also a misleading denial of misinformation. For an investment, one would think the government should show some gain on that investment over time, but when you are operating at 16 trillion dollars in debt – it is obvious spending is not and investment. Thus, if federal spending is an investment then it is a bad investment. I have heard proponents of federal spending say that it helps the economy and gives people jobs. If this is true, then economic growth and employment should reward the government with more taxable income. This is not happening; tax revenues are stagnant at best. The government has poured over 6 trillion dollars into the economy in the form of stimuli programs, unemployment benefits, quantitative easing measures, and anti-poverty programs over the past 4 years with negative results. This is equivalent to saying a family who has run up a debt of over a million dollars does not have a spending problem, but they have a paying problem. They would not have a paying problem if they did not overspend to start out with. This is denial.