Become another 'Great Generation' to turn Washington's troubles around

LIKE the Titanic after the iceberg, government budgets and American families are sinking. The crippling conditions California faces are just a preview of what lies ahead for Washington state. And instead of changing course, many state leaders and policymakers are frozen at the helm, relying on the same failing solutions to our perilous problems.

Some advocate increasing taxes and a European welfare state. Others support the cutting of social-service programs. Still others hope for President Obama to save us with another expensive bailout. But these solutions are akin to rearranging the Titanic's deck chairs and do not address the fundamental root causes of our problems and will lead to China owning us in 20 years.

The reality is this: Many in our society have embraced a brand of Wall Street and Hollywood self-interest that is unsustainable. What we are experiencing is not simply a recession in the economic sense, but the result of a morally bankrupt pursuit of individualism and entitlement at home and at work at the expense of any long-term greater good.

Many of us have turned our backs on institutions like marriage, faith communities, worker unions and service clubs that were once the linchpins of personal and community prosperity. We increasingly expect, if not demand, that taxes cover our mistakes and instead turn to foolish celebrities who dominate radio, TV, Wall Street and Hollywood for "wisdom" and policy solutions.

This trade-off has been a calamity. Wall Street failures, high unemployment and poverty jobs combined with soaring numbers of single-parent and hurting families are causing massive government shortfalls. A $9 billion state budget shortfall last spring, $4 billion next session, and a $4 billion gap in 2011 will gut our education and human-service systems.

Each year, fewer people marry and more single-parent families need government services to survive. Each year, more workers are hurt as poverty jobs replace middle-class jobs that are outsourced to low-wage states or countries to satisfy Wall Street profits and bonuses. In the next decade, our high-tech jobs will follow manufacturing out of state.

Improving one's wages with education won't help much when most new jobs require little education. The Washington State Job Vacancy Survey reports that 40 percent of vacant jobs pay less than $10 per hour. That means many new workers will be working for peanuts and needing government services to survive.

We have done better. Seventy-five years ago, the Greatest Generation and leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. soon afterward challenged us. Leaders from the faith, labor, business, political and education communities passed laws that demanded responsibility and sacrifice from all. They sacrificed, some with their lives, to insure all survived their generation's crisis and then prospered.

We can do better! Change must start with a values shift — one person, group and politician at a time. Our leaders imitate our values and priorities. Until we demand sacrifice and accountability in our public and personal lives, they will continue to fall short.

Second, the Legislature must adopt the Greatest Generation strategy by increasing principled unionization and slowly raising the minimum wage by linking its growth to income growth so that all workers benefit.

Lastly, we must promote family responsibility and prosperity by increasing marriages and stable families. If the marriage rate today were the same as in 1970, poverty would drop by 30 percent and state budgets and taxes would be much smaller.

Christmas is a time for reflection and a new commitment to love one another. We must stop living like Wall Street and Hollywood and focus again on what is important and just. Prosperity and true happiness only occurs through responsibility and sacrifice for one's family, neighbors and community. This is how the Greatest Generation survived their crises; it is the only way we will survive ours.

With God's help, we'll do better!