Running On Empty Book Review

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Running on Empty Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It In this book P. Peterson reminded the Bush aide that the United States faced a frightening long term balance sheet. This is the same scenario we have heard before but now we are living it. “As more than 70 million baby boomers begin retiring later in the decade, the Social Security and Medicare programs are destined to sink into multitrillion-dollar deficits, causing enormous hardships for younger Americans. Bush had a chance to avert disaster, Peterson told his aide. By using the immediate surpluses to fix the looming crisis, the new president could possibly solve "one of the largest fiscal challenges…show more content…
Americans want freedom and liberty to do as they please. But if everyone could do as they please without any worries about what would happen the United States would be a mad house. People could lie, steal, and kill without a second thought. This is where government steps in. I see government as a type of peacekeeper. Peacekeepers always get caught in the middle of a situation. There are people on both sides who want different things and neither can have exactly what it is they want. It’s the peacekeepers job to work out a compromise. I think American government does a fairly good job of compromising with the people. A negative aspect of American government in my opinion is how it makes people feel. I don’t know much about government at all, but I feel like it should bring people together, not put them on opposite sides of the fence. I know that people have different wants and needs with everything in life, including what they want out of a government. But I still feel like something could be done to combine the wants and needs of all people. In a way I feel like the government uses people against each other. I guess that could be a necessary tool in order to make things happen, but I still think it could possibly be done
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