It is said that “Truth is the first casualty of war.”

America is on the brink of economic ruin, and her fundamental principles are under a concerted assault by this administration and Congress. America’s Strategic National Priorities – Fiscal Policy, Energy Policy, Foreign Policy and Congressional Ethics Reform – are not being addressed.

Here’s why I call these four areas “Strategic National Priorities.”

1. The interest on our national debt (a debt which will grow by 1.4 TRILLION dollars next year) is piling up at A BILLION DOLLARS EVERY DAY.
2. Our dependency on foreign oil delivers A BILLION DOLLARS EVERY DAY to OPEC.
3. Our war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq ring up at HALF A BILLION DOLLARS EVERY DAY, not including the cost of thousands killed, wounded and maimed in unimaginably terrible ways. I know about our casualties. I have visited Walter Reed and wept with these incredible heroes – men and women shattered in the service of our country.
4. Payoffs, kickbacks, bribery, coercion, and intimidation – with ObamaCare as the penultimate example – are normal tactics in the conduct of business in Congress. The atmosphere of corruption has destroyed the trust of the American people in government.

While he was a U.S. Senator, John F. Kennedy wrote a book titled “Profiles in Courage.” In it, he chronicled acts of personal courage by sometimes unsung heroes who did the right thing regardless of personal cost. In every case, the people profiled in JFK’s book were faced with difficult decisions framed in the context of conflict. Sometimes the conflicts were the result of the perpetual struggle between right and wrong. Sometimes their struggles were the result of having to define what is right and what is wrong. 

Times have certainly changed since the publication of President Kennedy’s book. The struggles in Congress are no longer to define what is right, or even to do what is right. In Congress, the struggle has become how each member can best feather his or her political nest at our expense.

Americans have become cynical and disenfranchised from their government because those in whom we placed our trust have violated it. Elected representatives should be accountable to those who entrusted them with the future of our nation and the defense of our Constitutional liberties. We have a major ethics problem in government; its presence is a constant, exhibited in the conduct of too many of our elected leaders. Fraud, waste and abuse start in the halls of Congress, and carry through to every department of the federal government.