Integrity integral to solution for crisis

Every election has its own measuring stick, that single issue which eclipses all others. The war in Iraq, the catastrophic effects of global warming, rising unemployment, the collapse of the housing market and the credit industry, corruption on Wall Street and bank failures from one end of America to the other are all part of the economic crisis which will frame the next president’s agenda.

Our next president will likely find himself in the same position Herbert Hoover found himself at the dawn of the Great Depression. Recent presidents have worried about what their legacy will be. The next president must put all such considerations aside and do what is best for the nation at the expense of being hated for doing it.

Sadly, probably the most enduring legacy the Bush Presidency will leave is an impossible situation for his successor to dig his way out of; one which will leave the American people struggling to make ends meet, even on a good day.

Even in the best of times, there is only so much money to spend. That’s a lesson all of us are going to have to learn down to the very core of our being. It will be particularly hard for the Americans of today to swallow this bitter pill because most of us have grown up having what we want now and paying for it later, on credit.

The problem with credit spending is that sooner or later the whole note comes due. In the meantime, interest is accumulating. When a family overspends its budget, and their original debt grows exponentially because of interest payments, sooner or later that family winds up in bankruptcy, unless a benevolent family member bails them out.

The same is true of nations. No nation can allow lending institutions to encourage a large portion of its citizens to spend beyond their means, and even its own legislative bodies to spend beyond their means, without considering that sooner or later those notes will come due. When they do, the citizens who have been prudent with their money are forced to suffer the consequences and ante up right along with the big spenders.

The current economic crisis will set the tone of the next president’s administration. Instead of being able to pursue the good he could have done, he will be forced to deal with the inevitable consequences of the disastrous political shell game his predecessors have been playing at the expense of the American people.

Thankfully, for whichever candidate is elected, there will be a honeymoon of hope. But swift on its heels, the “morning after” will come, with its long line of bill collectors. The notes then due will eclipse all the glowing campaign promises we’re hearing these days.

As we go to the polls, the question of the hour is: Who will have the integrity to tell the American people the truth, that it will take a lot of belt tightening and doing without to pay for the reckless spending spree of the last decade and a half? Who will have the integrity to do not what is wanted, but what is needed?

The economic crisis we are now in will call for a remedy that will feel like a punishment to the American people. It will call for a frugality and cutting back on wants and wishes that has not been necessary since the Great Depression, a Spartan self-denial that will include a rethinking of how to manage entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, and a restructuring of priorities like education and healthcare.

The key issue, above all others in the coming election, is not the economic crisis. The key issue is integrity. There is no substitute for integrity.

A president may be courageous, but if his courage leads him to fight the wrong battle, he has still wasted his nation’s wealth on the wrong fight. It will take integrity to fight only those battles we can afford to fight. We are now learning that the world is a little too big for America to fix all by herself.

A president may be idealistic, but if the rest of the world does not share his ideals, he will squander his nation’s troops while the rest of the world sits back and refuses to join in the fight. It will take integrity to know when to fight and when to let other nations pursue their own ideals.

A president may be tenacious, but if he clings to the wrong strategy, his best efforts will be rewarded with the distrust and contempt of his own nation. Our next president must have the integrity to conserve the military forces we still have for the most important battles of the years ahead, while honoring the sacrifice the Iraq War has cost those who are now on the field of battle.

A president may long with all his heart to give his nation the programs and legislation they need and hope for. Now, in a time of financial crisis as great as any war we have ever fought, it will take uncommon valor and integrity to say no to so many of his own dreams, much less the people’s dreams, in order to stave off an even greater financial crisis that will engulf the whole world in economic ruin.

Now, as never before in our living memory, is the time to vote on the basis of one characteristic alone: Integrity. Which man will have the courage to stand up and take the blame, the criticism, the rancor and the animosity which will be poured out on that person who dares to do what is right and needful in this crisis hour?