It's a tough time for Americans, and partisan political attacks are running high. Even logical and historically accurate positions are viewed as partisan.

Regardless of party affiliation, please remember, we have politicians with little or no background in economics or business making economic decisions.

America has a long history where each succeeding generation has had better lives than the prior generation. This wonderful trend now is threatened by the mountain of debt that will be acquired by the federal government in future months and years.

Warren Buffett, the American investor, businessman and philanthropist, said recently that he had never seen the American consumer so fearful. We know for starters that auto and truck purchases are down big time.

Regaining confidence is difficult when the federal government is giving taxpayer-funded bailouts to companies with broken business models, including banks, Wall Street firms, auto manufacturers, etc.

It's also difficult when 90 percent of families who are current on their mortgages are asked to bail out the 10 percent who were irresponsible, or who lied, in acquiring their mortgages.

Many of today's problems are the result of federal government policies. Looking at history reveals this is not a new occurrence. President Herbert Hoover increased spending and income taxes during a recession and he gave us the Great Depression. He was an engineer and businessman and should have known better.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to get us out of the Great Depression with unprecedented levels of government spending. FDR's Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. said at the time, "We are spending more money than ever before and it does not work. We have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot."

Sound familiar?

World War II eventually ended the Great Depression.

The seeds of today's problems were planted in 1977 when Congress passed, and President Jimmy Carter signed into law, the Community Reinvestment Act. The CRA was designed to meet the credit needs of all segments of communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.

Subsequent presidential administrations either ignored the CRA or pushed its influence to higher and higher levels.

Hello, sub-prime mortgages.

Fast-forward to the current decade. In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, and economic slowdowns, the Federal Reserve reduced interest rates to lower and lower levels and made more and more money available. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and many mortgage companies, banks and other lenders took advantage of the easy money, providing mortgages to anybody with a pulse.

Easy money, coupled with greedy lenders and borrowers, gave us today's financial and credit meltdown.

Another negative from low-interest rates was a decline in the value of the dollar when compared with other world currencies. Since world crude oil is priced in dollars, a weaker dollar meant more dollars were required to buy a barrel of oil.

So, the Federal Reserve also contributed to last year's record-high oil prices. The dollar has strengthened recently and has helped decrease the price of oil — along with lower global demand.

President Barack Obama and Congress plan to get us out of the current recession with a stimulus package and budget with unprecedented levels of spending and debt. Obama's 10-year budget forecasts doubling national debt in five years and tripling it in 10 years.

Our federal government is starting to resemble a ponzi scheme. Add Social Security and Medicare and Washington makes Bernard Madoff look like an amateur.

The Congressional Budget Office has determined that the actual levels of new debt could be even larger because Obama's forecast uses rosy economic assumptions.

Today, approximately 50 percent of our national debt is in foreign hands. Will the U.S. Treasury find buyers for this enormous amount of additional debt? Maybe.

Will interest rates have to increase dramatically in order to sell this debt? Probably.

Will much-higher inflation follow the much-higher interest rates?

Probably.

We can agree on one result of all this spending and borrowing: We are leaving a financial nightmare for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This is simply immoral.

Economic history tells us the way to an improved economy is to increase consumer demand. Demand will put Americans back to work because more products and services will be needed. It would be helpful to elevate consumer confidence to a level resulting in the purchase of a new vehicle.

An easy way to increase consumer confidence is to reduce government spending on new or expanded social programs and "pork," and reallocate those funds to consumers by way of personal income tax cuts.

The sooner politicians learn that the laws of economics will not change even for them, then the sooner things will improve for Americans.

Ron Brandon, of Connoquenessing Township, is a retired Butler area businessman.