The following link will take you to a phenomenal movie short entitled "IOUSA."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo

This film presents America's fiscal crisis in the clearest terms I've found yet. The progression is easy to follow. The implications, scary.

The most intelligent observation made during the film is that we suffer from a "leadership deficit." No phrase could more accurately describe our precarious position as a nation. No concept could be more disheartening. 

America aches from many ailments. At the root of all of these, however, can be found a failure of America's so-called "leadership." I deride the term as used here because what our elected officials have done to our once-limited Republic is inexcusable, and qualifies for nearly any description except that of "leadership." They have not led our nation, they have bled it.

This is not a partisan issue. For too long the American people have been divided like sheep into two compliant, and blind, camps. The administration of George W. Bush could not have behaved more fiscally irresponsibly if it had deliberately set out to do so. Further, this film was made before the exasperatingly outrageous spending programs being ramrodded through the legislative process by the current administration. Just imagine if Nationalized Healthcare, Reparations, Illegal Immigrant Amnesty, and the whole host of entitlement and resurrected Great Society programs being proposed actually make it into existence. Under such incredible circumstances, the financial ruin of our economy will be even more imminent than demonstrated by this film; a fact that should chill anyone with a calculator and half-a-brain to the bone.

America is ailing desperately. She needs reviving. And she needs revival. Just how will this happen? The same way it always has throughout history and always does in smaller ways in our lives each day:

1. by the Grace of God

2. by the efforts of true leaders.

We will pray to God for the first.

And we will strive ourselves to provide the second. 

We certainly have a leadership deficit, and maybe we can change that.

We can only pray that we don't have a Grace deficit, as well.