There are a handful of issues, mostly moral or theological, on which I take an unalterable stance.  These topics are private and personal to me, and I avoid proselytizing about them.  Should others see evidence of these beliefs in my example and choose to agree, the decision is solely theirs.  Excluding these issues, I find that in most cases I avoid extreme positions, choosing instead to follow a middle course.  This is especially true in the areas of politics and economics.  It was, therefore, interesting to me when, a few weeks ago, I heard a right wing pundit label people with moderate views as individuals without principle.  He indicated that in order to truly stand for something a definitive stance must be taken.  He seemed to be saying that matters in question are either black or white, right or wrong, just or unjust.  There is no middle ground.  I have been thinking about his opinions a great deal of late and now feel ready to attempt a response.  Perhaps an appropriate title for this newsletter would be, “The Principled Middle Ground.”

      Let’s face it.  We are in an economic mess.  Housing sales for July shocked the experts by coming in at a twenty seven year low.  Economists debate if we are entering a double dip in the recession or if we are still in the first dip.  Unemployment rates hover at ten percent and in reality are closer to seventeen percent if those who have stopped looking for jobs are included in the data.  The far right gleefully shows these numbers as a reason to vote for them in the mid term elections.  Keynesian economics, they say, is a failure and should be abandoned in favor of a purer free market approach.  The left, on the other hand, wants to add to the unprecedented national debt by some sort of second stimulus program, and by continuing indefinitely, safety net programs like unemployment compensation.  My view is that both of these extremes are dangerous and ineffective.

     Permit me to look first at the approach of the right.  I wonder if they even understand the Keynesian  model.  John Maynard Keynes was a twentieth century British economist who believed  that government could moderate the extreme effects of the business cycle through increased spending and lowered taxes in times of recession followed by replacement of the funds during economic expansions through lower spending and increased taxes.  The problem with the Keynesian model, as I see it, is that government lacks the courage to carry out the second half of his theory.  While it might be politically unpopular, it can be done.  Many of us in the private sector do it as a matter of course.  We are careful with our money during times of prosperity so that we will have a nest egg to fall back on during difficult times.  I fail to understand why government cannot act similarly.  Instead, those on the right love to quote Ronald Reagan who once said that, “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”  While that is a clever quotation, one that works well at political rallies, it is a huge overgeneralization and in many cases simply untrue.  For example, whenever I see children playing, enjoying their right to the innocence of childhood, I think that, except for government, they would still be enslaved in sweatshops and coal mines.  And there are countless other examples where government was not the problem but rather the solution. 

     Now that I have alienated many of my friends on the right, I will probably do the same for those on the left where the philosophy seems to be that for society to be stable, government needs to oversee a massive redistribution of wealth, unprecedented control over health care, takeover of troubled businesses and never ending extensions of unemployment compensation.  While I reject the near totally unregulated laissez- faire ideas of the right, I equally reject the massive intrusion of government into our lives.  The tendency for government to “enable” its citizens dampens the spirit of independent self reliance that has long been the hallmark of our national identity.  Recently a left wing sage spent and entire segment of his program mocking a guest who suggested that unemployed people move to areas where jobs were available rather than depend on extended unemployment benefits.  The pundit asked his guest if he could possibly be serious at such a suggestion.  When I was a young college graduate who could not find employment near my college or back in my home town, I moved to where the jobs were.  Every one I knew did the same thing.  No one looked to government for help.  They simply moved to where the jobs were.  Now let me be clear.  There are many individual situations in our current dilemma who genuinely need government assistance, and I am in no way suggesting that they be ignored.  But I do believe that we need a more carefully run program where those who are able to take control of their lives be required to do so. 

      On another topic, I am very concerned with the provision in the new health care law requiring all individuals to have health insurance or face a penalty.  It is, I believe, unprecedented that a citizen can be punished for not doing something.  It makes me wonder what else I can be punished for “not doing.”  How I wish that a more moderate approach to health care reform had been taken.  We could have started by ending the monopolistic practices of insurance companies by allowing individuals and employers to purchase policies across state lines.

      I could continue with other topics but hopefully I have made the point that on nearly every political and economic issue facing us as a people there is a principled middle course that would solve problems while maintaining a spirit of civility and accord.  It is time for political moderates to stand together and demand and end to partisan politics.