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Western politicians have for decades wasted taxpayers’ money giving us things we neither want nor need and certainly can’t afford.
The upshot is the collapsing economies of Europe and the US’s insurmountable debts, growing at $1.3 trillion a year.
Australia is heading down the same road as recently elected state governments are confronted with massive budgetary blowouts due to the mindless extravagance of preceding administrations. At the same time, hardly a day passes without the Gillard federal government announcing yet another unaffordable, ill-considered multi-billion dollar scheme; projects and services that are remarkable for the lack of public clamour for their introduction.
What this country urgently needs is a political leader to cry ”enough”. To tell the nation we can no longer erode the economy and sentence our grandchildren to penjury just because political strategists see temporary electoral gains in hugely expensive molly-coddling programs.
So it was some consolation today, to have a respected journalist – usually identified with the Left – using his new platform to urge governments to consult the public about what we all want and how much it will really cost.
Shaun Carney, formerly of The Age, writes in the Herald Sun:

It used to be that the most important segment of the electorate was the so-called aspirational voter, who dreamed of and worked towards a better life.
Those voters looked to governments to help them get there.
In the new politics, governments, rather than voters, are the ones who aspire to something better and share their policy dreams with us – even though they’re not really sure how they can make it all happen.