Last month, Purple philosophized on the difficulty humans have planning ahead. Heading off serious problems, when costs come now, and benefits lie far in the future, is a hard sell. And there are numerous politicians and "talking heads" ready to demagogue such proposals to death, if doing so will make them heroes to shortsighted voters and party ideologues.

America faces a mountain of such problems, many interconnected, and often with roots in past policies, including:

High unemployment

A financial system in disarray

Demographics - an aging population; and the nation's least prosperous socio-economic components expanding fastest

Public education – pre K to 12 –suffering academic cut backs to avoid taxes

The world's highest per-capita health care costs, headed higher

Growing fiscal deficits and public debt, and a low rate of savings

Inadequate investment in infrastructure - roads, bridges, communications, water systems and airports

Global climate disruption, traceable to fossil fuel use and deforestation

Immigration policy permitting inflow of poorly educated laborers, while deterring foreigners attending our graduate schools from working here

Until recently, declining international respect

Lack of a peaceful working relationship with many Islamic peoples.

Nuclear proliferation

Briefly, the political parties' current reactions:

Democrats: Don't touch present entitlements, expand health care to cover everyone, don't upset our teachers and other unions.

Republicans: Mustn't raise taxes. We will oppose all Democrat proposals so the President will look ineffective, and we can win elections.

Looking at the federal budget, Purple believes anyone who passed sixth grade arithmetic would conclude we must both curtail entitlements and raise taxes, or the nation will drown in red ink. But each party is pursuing its short term electoral goals. Neither seems to give a hoot for the future of the nation they were elected to serve. And few legislators in either party will publicly question their leaders.

When I was in the government, Commerce Secretary Mac Baldrige (a fellow former businessman and my boss) explained that "Business is organized to make good things happen. Government is organized to prevent bad things happening."

Or to prevent anything happening? The Senate requires 60 votes (out of 100) to cut off a filibuster. This means that 41 votes can stop anything. The 21 least populous states (42 senators) have less than 12% of the nation's population between them. In theory, only a bare majority of that 12%, electing senators so inclined, can shut down the federal government.

The nation does not deserve this partisan gridlock. During the past year I was privileged to give two commencement speeches to teenagers, and to attend a family reunion including 10 of our grandchildren, ranging from mothers to college freshmen. These young people are more aware of the world around them and far more service-oriented than their parents' contemporaries. They and their age-mates are America's future. Their universities are the world's finest, as is the science they studied. Our market system remains the world's most efficient wealth producer. They have all the tools to build America in the next 40 years as the so-called "greatest generation" did after WW II. They deserve a government that helps them to do so.

There are some hopeful signs. The leadership of the Senate Finance Committee proposed a bi-partisan commission to study and recommend how to fix our finances. Republicans voted "no" because it might propose raising taxes. Now the President has indicated he will appoint such a commission. The Bipartisan Policy Center, founded by two Republican and two Democrat former Senate majority leaders, is forming a similar group. Congressman Frank Wolf also proposed such a commission to give politicians cover to make unpleasant choices. But one must ask "why must today's elected officials hide behind a commission in order to do what's right for America?"

Purple is eager to hear what its page-mates Red and Blue think about this.