Is 2012 the beginning of the end?

The fact that 2012 represents the end of the Mayan calendar—and presumably the end of the world—is perhaps fitting for the next presidential election. Next year may well be the last chance conservatives have to avert economic catastrophe from befalling the United States of America.

A brief period in the nineteen nineties withstanding, the U.S. federal government—along with many state and local governments across the country—has been spend-thrift since the Great Depression.

America has borrowed money beyond her ability to repay. She has reached her debt ceiling. Both her debt and her trade deficit are into the trillions of dollars. That’s a thousand times a billion, or a hundred thousand times a million.

Foreign countries such as China, Japan, the United Kingdom and OPEC nations (e.g., Saudi Arabia) own about 47 percent, or a little less than half of the total public debt owed by the United States. The American public owns the rest.

The value of the American dollar continues to fall as it’s routinely borrowed against other foreign currencies. Pretty soon, our dollar will be worth less than the Chinese yuan, the Japanese yen or perhaps even the Euro. When that happens, who will want to buy any more of our debt from us?

Rather, those interests will begin demanding payback.

The more we continue to spend in the manner that we have for the past several decades, the faster we will get to the point where our creditors will no longer accept any more debt. They will want to be paid back for what we owe them.

The question is when.

When should the U.S. Congress and the President stop the current pattern of spending that has not only become chronic, but habitual? When should our elected officials start thinking more about their nation’s indebtedness and less about the next election?

I submit that the time is now. Actually, it was yesterday, but that’s water under the bridge now. All we have left are today and tomorrow.

The current presidential administration has demonstrated about the same commitment to fiscal responsibility and discipline as the last one. Can America last much beyond 2012 if the same people with the same fiscal mentality continue to make economic decisions for the rest of us?

I feign to think not…and I perish the thought.

Something has to give in this next year or so, because if nothing changes toward better fiscal discipline in the next two years, then I am left to wonder what America may look like in another decade. Will she exist at all the way we know her today?

These are questions I hope everyone of us—left, right or center—has the courage to ask in the upcoming general election.