In Florida, on July 13th, the Jurors in the George Zimmerman trial came to a decision.  They followed the law. They used the customary standard of  proof in criminal trials, and found that the prosecution had failed to prove its case “beyond reasonable doubt”.  They found  George Zimmerman not guilty.  The jurors did not bend to the threats of those who predicted riots and retribution if Zimmerman were acquitted.  They paid no attention to those who demanded “justice” according to fashion, or the political demands of race. They did not accommodate the apparent preferences of officials like President Obama, who famously compared Trayvon Martin to his own son.  They did the right thing.  They did their jobs.

In Michigan, we are now hearing about Detroit.  Detroit is a disaster.  The citizens of  Detroit made decisions, too.  They had troubles, but  they put off the real solutions to “tomorrow”.  As the city shrank over 60 years from 1.8 million to 700,000, city officials followed the conventional wisdom.  They raised taxes, and made running a business difficult and expensive.  They used the tax money to bribe large corporations to locate in the city to cover up their failure.  As the city deteriorated, the city fathers, made sure that downtown had a people mover and a beautiful GM headquarters.  State and federal money flowed to Detroit to keep it afloat.  Despite all this, everyone in the Detroit area knows that if you go downtown, you had better not venture outside the “loop”.

Over that 60 years, thousands of businesses, large and small, and 1.1 million citizens fled elsewhere.  They voted with their feet.  Without taxpayers to pay the bills, Detroit sank under the weight of its “legacy costs”, much of it retirement commitments.  Detroit is now bankrupt, and selling off what it owns to pay its bills.  Retirees and bondholders will pay a hefty price.

No one in Detroit could claim to be blindsided by this.  A 60 year trend can’t “sneak up” on you.  At any point in that 60 years, Detroit could have taken stock of their situation.  They could have faced up to the enormous future retirement obligations, and done something to adjust.  They could have taken action to get back Detroit’s competitive edge and attract business back to the city.  Instead, they pleaded with state and federal governments for more money.  Instead of cleaning up their own act, they compelled others to foot the bill.

Detroit should be an object lesson for the US government.  The federal government also has enormous future retirement obligations, and no credible plan to pay them.  The federal government is avoiding facing up to its deficits, obligations and problems.  Like Detroit, it insists that a little more money will fix the problem “for now”, but  “tomorrow” never comes.

I don’t know what “bankruptcy” looks like for the US government, but I know that the process of promising too much ends badly.  The US government is being irresponsible, and the voters are not doing their jobs.  Like the citizens of Detroit, we seem to be comfortable with squeezing the productive and the successful for more “temporary” assistance, while putting off the real fixes to “tomorrow”.  Unlike Detroit, we do not have a shrinking population, but like Detroit, we have a shrinking population of non-retirees.  Just like Detroit, the fraction of the population that is dependent is growing, and the fraction producing is shrinking.  Regardless of the “promises”, made by today’s politicians, it is future taxpayers who will pay the bills.  We have no way to force them to keep ourpromises.

We can pretend that everything is fine, and fix our problems “tomorrow”, but like Detroit, that tends to end in disaster.

It is time to reject the professional victims, the interest groups and the freeloaders.  We cannot solve national problems without working together.  Those who sow division, and tell us to “fight” for this or that are probably pushing their own agendas.

It’s time to face up to our fiscal situation and peel back the overweening government that has robbed us of our competitive edge.  There is no easy solution.  The solution is to get to work.   It’s time for us to roll up our sleeves and do our jobs.