For Americans, new declarations
TODAY IS A day to celebrate the doughty spirit of our nation's founders, the men whose revolutionary dedication made a new nation.
Back in the summer of 1776, when they voted for independence and signed Thomas Jefferson's ringing, rolling declaration, the path they chose was full of peril. When they pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor in defying one of the world's preeminent powers, they were embarking on a course that demanded both undaunted courage and steely determination.
Two hundred and thirty years later, it's an open question whether that determination is still a defining aspect of the American character. Certainly it's long past time that we issued some of our own era's declarations -- of our determination to confront the challenges that face us, even when doing so means making sacrifices.
The first would be a declaration of our determination to achieve energy independence. We once seemed determined to fight our addiction to foreign oil, cutting our imports substantially in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, when gas prices tumbled, we lost our resolve, succumbing to the seduction of large, luxurious gas guzzlers, and trading mileage and efficiency for speed and horsepower. And now we're paying the price.
But with a real commitment to higher mileage, to new technologies, to alternative fuels, to better habits, and to more public transportation, we could put ourselves back on the road toward self-sufficiency. Doing so, however, would require an acceptance that we will have to pay more at the pump and at the dealership.
So far, we've barely embarked on that journey.
A second declaration should be to national financial independence. When the history of this era is written, it will be harsh on leaders who boasted of the prosperity they had wrought while ignoring the consequences of the federal debt they piled up -- and passed on. Deficit spending is certainly justified in times of recession, but the economic downturn of the early 2000s is now long over. Yet Washington has shown no willingness to take serious action, either on the revenue or the spending side, to bring the federal budget back toward sanity.
``We need to take control of our future," says Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a budgetary watchdog. ``This country has always sacrificed for the future, and now we are refusing to make those sacrifices."
Instead, year by year, we run up some $300 billion of new federal debt. Indeed, each new American baby is now born with $27,835.12 as his or her average share of our national indebtedness. Like termites in the fiscal foundation, that debt weakens our nation, limits our options, and even hampers our foreign policy, since it leaves us reliant on the willingness of foreign governments to buy US bonds.
There's simply no excuse for such fiscal profligacy.
We would also need a declaration of independence from healthcare worries. Providing universal healthcare is hardly a problem that defies solution, as evidenced by the fact that almost every other developed country spends substantially less per capita than we do on healthcare, while offering universal, or nearly universal, care.
Nor does having universal care necessarily mean adopting a single-payer system, a favorite nostrum of the left, but a bete noire to the right.
``Most countries do it without single-payer, without a government-run system," says John McDonough, executive director of the advocacy group Health Care For All. ``Most have a mix of public and private payments, with government oversight."
Finally, we need a declaration of dedication to American educational excellence. It's been almost a quarter century since the ``A Nation At Risk" report warned about the dangers of educational underperformance. Still, in an age of tough global economic competition, we remain far too complacent about mediocre schools and underprepared American students.
Our high school pupils rank well below our competitors on science and math literacy. We are also well down on the list in the percentage of our college students who earn degrees in science, technology, engineering, or math. More young Americans need to master the skills of future economic success.
Time was, Americans showed again and again that, as a nation, we were ready to rise to meet a challenge. It's time for that spirit to reassert itself -- and for American citizens to demand that their leaders chart a course that meets the future head on.
Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com. 
