There’s a tradition at my alma mater, Purdue University. It started in 1966.

As part of the pre-game flag ceremony at football games, Purdue’s band forms up and begins playing “America The Beautiful.” With nearly the precision of a U.S. Marine Corps drill team, 69,200 fans stand and snap to attention. The announcer’s voice booms out these words over the music:

“I am an American! That’s the way most of us put it, just matter of factly. They are plain words, those four. You could write them on your thumbnail, or you could sweep them clear across this bright autumn sky. But remember too that they are more than words. They are a way of life. So whenever you speak them, speak them firmly; speak them proudly; speak them gratefully. I am an American.”

A man named Jack Scott wrote those words. He was the publisher of the local paper in Lafayette, Ind., and a retired Marine Corps general. After the first presentation, it was removed from the program. The people rebelled and it was put back in.

The next year it was removed again and the rebellion was bigger. Finally, the powers that be got the message and the “I Am An American” tradition has continued to this day. Sometimes it takes a rebellion — or a near rebellion — to get a message across. Rebellions sometimes start small. Maybe with a tea party.

Were these recent Tea Parties such an event? They’re a beginning, I think. Time will tell. I stood on the street corner and I talked to people, and I witnessed what was going on not only in the crowd of maybe a hundred, but also in the near unanimous show of support from motorists by the hundreds who honked and waved encouragement as they drove through our intersection.

I heard not a single racial comment. I did hear comments about taxes being high but most were about the vast amounts of money — money borrowed in our names — being firehosed in various directions without the slightest concern about how we will ever be able to pay it back.

That’s what the Tea Parties were about and that’s what the majority of the media so far has failed to grasp. Tea Parties weren’t partisan. No one was wearing party buttons or paraphernalia. Everyone there was concerned about one thing. Their country. And they are absolutely right to be concerned. Here’s why.

This country’s gross national product is currently about $13.4 trillion. That’s the sum total value of all the goods we produce or grow plus the value of all the services we perform in one year. $13.4 trillion. Remember that number.

This country is currently in debt by $12.4 trillion and the powers that be have voted to spend another couple trillion they don’t have on the 2010 budget, so pretty soon our debt will rise to around $15 trillion. That means we couldn’t pay off the national debt if we applied the value of our total productivity and labor for an entire year against that debt. Just the interest we pay on the current debt is now half a trillion each year and growing — fast!

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

The federal government has guaranteed our bank accounts, government and military retirements, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security retirement, and it even insures private pensions. Just how much do you think all that’s going to cost?

Well, the federal government has an unfunded liability for between $500 billion and $1 trillion to backstop private pensions. The word unfunded means that the government has not put this money away to be used when needed. It means the government doesn’t have that money at all and has taken no steps whatsoever to figure out where to get it. Watch for that word unfunded in the rest of this column.

There are about 78 million so-called baby boomers about to retire. Many will retire early at age 62. All who retire will quit working and thus quit paying into Social Security. Rather, they will begin drawing on it.

But, there is no money in the Social Security Trust Fund because previous administrations and Congresses have spent every dime that we paid in. Mostly, they spent it on everything except Social Security payments — just like this state was spending your car license tab fees on everything but roads until the revolt.

In fact, the Social Security unfunded liability probably totals $100 trillion through the year 2050. It will have to be paid out of current revenues, commonly known as your taxes, every year.

But Medicare has that beat. Some estimates put Medicare’s unfunded liability as high as $600 trillion by 2050.

Even if the feds just ended all these entitlement programs right now, they are still on the hook for around $52 trillion of benefits that have already been “earned” by people who have every right to expect to receive them and will most certainly do more than hold tea parties if they don’t.

Janet Napolitano, the totally unqualified new head of Homeland Security, has that part right in her little memo to law enforcement agencies that’s gotten everyone stirred up, but she has vastly underestimated the scope of what she should be worrying about.

The Congressional Budget Office now estimates that by the year 2050, the federal government will need two dollars out of every three we earn to make good on everything it’s promised to pay for, plus keep the government running. That puts each and every one of you in the 67 percent tax bracket. If we add government paid health care to the entitlement soup sandwich, it will probably drive that 67 percent figure up to something more like 80 percent.

All of that is in your near future. Major damage has already been done. There may or may not be time to undo enough of it to matter. If you want to try, you’ve got to spend more time finding out what’s really going on around you and maybe spend a little less time agonizing over your favorite American Idol contestant’s fate.

Start worrying about your own future — and your family’s future. Question what your leaders are telling you, even if they’re telling you what you want to hear. It’s easy to make promises. Sometimes it’s pretty hard to keep them, even if keeping them was actually the intention. Beware of the elected official who talks of more entitlements.

Holding tea parties won’t get the job done. Neither will most of the government officials you have voted into office. They are incapable of fixing the mess we’re in. Only we can. We, the people. If we can’t put enough people into office who will put controls in place, our own government will consume us with its rampant ineptness.

There must be term limits. There must be a Constitutional limit placed on spending. Programs must be cut and large sections of the federal behemoth must be amputated and scattered to the winds. States must reclaim and assert their Constitutional rights. Both major political parties must be broken and common sense must take the place of their obscene partisanship.

It is time for common sense to prevail and for the majority to rule — from presidential elections right down to the goings on in your local City Hall.

There are solutions to all this madness but none of them are currently in play. The first step is to search out facts, think about them, and then tell someone else. Then there will be two of you … and then four…
Columnist Terry Christiansen, a former Anacortes City Council member, welcomes comments and suggestions. Contact him at .