RESTORE THE HEALTH OF OUR SOCIETY

April 29, 2012

After re-listening to the Ronald Reagan economic speech from May of 1981 to a joint session of Congress, my retired medical past had no choice but to kick into high gear.   When he spoke to Congress he metaphorically used medical terms to describe the economy.   He was urging Congress to work as a team to restore the health of the country, reverse the sickness of society, and to heed what was the source of such illness, a government that persists in overspending.

Would President Reagan’s speech be appropriate today?  Of course it would.  The conditions today are really no different than they were 30 years ago, with one exception.   The illness of our economy has gotten worse.   The history lesson then is still the same lesson that should be embraced today.   We must face the facts that the disease that has slowly and surely grown into the body of society has metastasized and spread into every major organ of our country.   There have been many superficial treatments practiced and applied to temporarily hinder the disease, but none of these treatments have eradicated the cells that continue to grow beneath the republic skin.

Call it a cancer, the label certainly fits.   The treatments have been as diverse as declaring that radiating the tumorous growth of excessiveness and inflated government spending will help, but this course of treatment has not stopped the cancerous growth from appearing in other major sections of our economy.   Chemotherapy, one of the most extreme forms of treatment for decades, is much more sophisticated in targeting the oft times fatal source but it can also destroy the good tissue as well.  I’m just not sure that the government or the people are truly willing to accept this intervention.   The health of our country has gone beyond a good prognosis for recovery unless we subject a remedy that is so strong that we risk a lethal outcome.

Healing the country of such illness will take one huge prescription and will require a formidable dose that will bypass the good programs and target the spread of deceitful and insidious spending that threatens the overall recovery of our nation.    We the people must continually be diligent and apply pressure, not just bandages, to return our sick economy to a healthy status again.   

Arvene Kilby

Bridgeton, NJ