From the soaring cost of health care to out-of-control illegal immigration, the actual sources of our nation’s problems are persistently ignored – making real solutions all but impossible. Because unless we deal with the underlying causes of our fiscal problems, we will never be able to effectively make the changes we so desperately need.

Take the hoards of illegals streaming across our Southern border. While everyone offers after-the-fact band-aids, nobody wants to deal with the two fundamental reasons that we have the problem in the first place: jobs and welfare. Illegals come here because they can simply earn more money than they can in their home country, especially if they work “off book” – for cash. If we actually made it impossible for illegal aliens to work in the United States, the invasion would all but dry up.

But on this issue, Republicans are just as guilty as Democrats – neither party wants to alienate their corporate supporters by genuinely enforcing the law with fines and criminal charges, nor angering the Hispanic community by prosecuting the illegals who use falsified documents to obtain jobs.

The other problem with illegals is that once they are here, they are allowed to avail themselves of a cornucopia of “social services” – at tax payer’s expense, of course. But why do we tolerate this? True, this problem is partly the result of the “anchor baby” issue, which some have tried to claim would only be solved with a Constitutional amendment to redefine the 14th Amendment.

But we don’t need to rewrite the Constitution – just enforce it. If a Mexican woman waddles across the border just in time to pop out a baby, we can recognize the child as a U.S. citizen, but we do not have to cave in and let his/her parents stay here illegally, living in subsidized housing, cashing in on food stamps and a whole host of  federal and state government welfare programs, not to mention bankrupting our health care system.

Because while the CHILD arguably has a right to stay here – the parents do NOT. Now, of course, the hand-wringing crowd will say that such enforcement is “unfair” – but who created this mess in the first place? The parents did, by sneaking across the border. And we are not, as the left falsely contends, “breaking up families” – the parents are more than welcome to take their child with them when they return to their home country.

Speaking of health care, the single biggest culprit behind the rising cost of medical care is government interference. Whether forcing doctors and hospitals to treat patients who cannot (or will not) pay their bills, or enacting laws that prevent people from buying insurance across state lines, the ever-increasing intrusion by “Big Brother” in what should be a private contract between customer and insurer, is truly the “elephant in the room.”

And it’s about to get worse, much worse. Companies across the nation are already giving their employees the bad news: as a direct result of the looming threat that ‘Obamacare” poses, they are being forced to pass on increasing premium costs to their employees – in some cases, even dropping health insurance altogether.

But whether we are discussing illegal immigration, health care, or both, no matter how economically workable and sensible that the real solutions are, they are simply too politically incorrect for our current legislators to confront.

We can only hope that November, 2010 will bring us at least a few genuine leaders, people with integrity who are unafraid to make the tough decisions – because if we don’t deal with these issues soon, it may very well be too late.

John Caile

http://havegunwillvote.blogtownhall.com/