Merry Christmas!
Don't look for your gift under the tree. Instead, look around you. The greatest gift Americans will give one another today and all next year is the American spirit.
It is this spirit that will rid the country of economic malaise, get it out of Afghanistan and Iraq, make the world safer, stop global climate change, make the lives of our weakest citizens more secure and put people back to work.
Americans are not known for sitting around emanating doom and gloom. We're always looking for a way forward. We wake up every day with the idea that we can make things better, and with enough intelligent thinking and energy, we will.
Many of our nation's representatives and senators, however, need to reclaim this can-do attitude. They need to recapture the sense of mission that can get lost in the minutiae of 2,000-page bills, bedeviled debates and parliamentary posturing. They need to become reinvigorated by the ideas and the issues that led them to run for office the very first time.
They need to be inspired in order to inspire. For inspiration they need to see America outside the halls of power.
Out here, our so-called economic recovery looks anemic at best.
Oh, we see the stock tickers turning green, the graphs trending upward, and banks paying back government loans and realizing record profits. We note that the last quarter saw growth in the economy for the first time in a year.
Yet, we see the state of Idaho borrow $91 million from the federal government to pay benefits to 68,800 unemployed.
We hear the hurt of small businesses hit with whopping unemployment tax increases. We read about the 140 banks and counting that have been shut down this year nationwide.
We watch Wood River Valley home foreclosures proceed unabated. We see the faces of the 17 percent of people out of work and families going without health insurance because they can't afford it. We see businesses struggling to keep the doors open.
We see too many trees this year decorated with pink slips, unpaid bills and notices of foreclosure and bankruptcy.
Within this miserable litany lies need, within need lies inspiration and within inspiration lies the true mission of every American: to care for one another.
Americans are chastened, but undaunted and determined. We want change and we want faster results. To get them, we need inspired leadership. Leadership with civility and honor would be a bonus.
Americans can do, but leaders must lead. With work, a little luck and determined spirit, next Christmas could look a whole lot better outside the halls of power.
