A basic truth is that nothing stays the same. This is true for any individual or any nation.

Each day you are not the same person you were yesterday. Either you are moving forward or backward. Either you are improving or deteriorating.

I often quote historian Arnold Toynbee that “an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.” I bring this up because it is an important reminder. Think of the Greeks, the Romans or the British Empire on which the sun never set.

Regardless of what you may think about MAGA, President Donald Trump is a political figure of historic proportions — someone who never ran for or held political office, twice being elected to non-consecutive terms as president. Why? Because the sentiment of MAGA touches what Americans know is true. Something is wrong. Crucial factors that drove American greatness are getting lost.

Americans feel it. Polls tell us. Ongoing dismal numbers regarding satisfaction with the state of the nation, national pride, confidence in every major institution of the country.

Now the point: the current government shutdown.

What is happening?

The Democratic Party is up against the wall. It stands for everything that is destroying the country. If MAGA means we’re in trouble and we need to fix what is broken, the message of Democrats is nothing is broken and we must continue on the same path.

What is the same path? That every problem the country faces, every challenge each American citizen faces, can be dispensed with by more government, more programs, more spending.

But if more government and more spending is the problem, not the solution, Democrats are in great political trouble. And this is what is happening.

The sign of economic health is economic growth. Growth is what creates new jobs, new opportunities, drives down costs, and drives up income and wealth.

As I often quote, the average real growth of the U.S. economy was 3.64% annually for the half century from 1950 to 2000. The average from 2000 to 2025 is a third less at 2.2%.

Why? Government is sucking up more and more of our economy. In 1950, the federal government consumed 14.2% of GDP; in 2000, 17.5%; in 2024, 23%.

Government produces nothing. The more government takes, the more our resources are diverted from productive uses to non-productive uses.

Worse, this inexorable growth of government has been on the sly. Rather than going directly to the American people and raising taxes to finance all government spending honestly, this was not done because it is political suicide. Ongoing multitrillion-dollar deficits are financed with debt — shifting the tax burden to future generations.

So federal government debt has now reached $37 trillion, more than 20% greater than projections for our 2025 GDP — $30.5 trillion.

Is it any wonder that our youth are confused and disillusioned?

Democratic leadership knows they are between a rock and a hard place. So, they huddled to come up with some clever way to scare the American people to push for more government. The hot button they chose was health care.

We’re all concerned about making health care delivery more efficient. But Democrats want to continue the distortions. As Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center notes, quoting the Paragon Institute, “In 2014, taxpayers covered 68% of Obamacare premiums. By 2020, that figure had risen to 80%” and “taxpayers now cover 93% of (Obamacare) premiums.”

Donna Brazile, former Democratic National Committee chair and veteran of numerous Democratic presidential campaigns, proposes in a recent article in The Hill more cute word games that Democrats should employ to hide the truth. Democrats, she advises, should say they stand for “affordability.” But what Democrats mean by affordability is use of government subsidies to disguise true costs.

Our country needs reality and truth. We’re going broke and need to restore freedom, markets and efficiencies. This is what made America great.

And this is how to Make America Great Again.

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