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We want it all; four words that define America.  What is remarkable is that, for 234 years we have been able to attain and obtain pretty much everything we set our sights on.

Increased life expectancy, check.  Ever rising living standard, check.  Avarice, hedonism, religiosity - check, check and check.  America has amassed a long list of accumulation and accomplishment. 

The fact that it is never enough is part of our charm as Americans; we want it all.  For example, we have a health care system that is the envy of the world.  We think nothing of replacing a hip or a heart valve so we can continue to play tennis on Tuesday and Saturday. Yet many of us cannot sleep soundly knowing that about 10% of Americans can only get health care by visiting an emergency room.  The rest of us can’t sleep because of the cost of health insurance. Oy vey!  It’s getting so expensive that it is eating into our capacity to, well, eat the way we want to.  So, for decades we Americans have gotten our nation’s shorts in a bundle over health insurance and they won’t unbundle until we have 100% coverage – better make that 110% coverage, after all, we are Americans.

Is the term “American consumerism” now officially redundant?  Last weekend I went with a few thousands of my neighbors to recycle (throw away) our outdated electronic gear.  The four televisions I had stuffed into my car were tossed into huge bins and loaded into awaiting semi trailers.  I’m told that in one day last year they filled 73 semi trucks with old televisions.  Car after car was depositing their old bulky sets (is it still proper to use the term set when referring to the new televisions?) to assuredly be replaced back home with sleek new flat screens.  Not only do we Americans want the newest television, we want more of them.  We put these new screens everywhere; in our homes, our garages, our minivans and our boats.   We want it all.

Yes, we want material goods, and keep them coming.  But we also want our fellow men and women to  be happy and healthy and we are willing to dip into our own pocketbooks to make it so.  Americans are by far the most generous private givers on planet earth.  We also have a deep visceral need to know that our children will have things even better than we did. 

That is what is so disturbing about the current condition of the economy.  We won’t speak it out loud but we Americans have come face to face with our limitations.  Our houses, once seen as magic wealth creators are now seen as simply houses, albeit houses with several flat screen televisions. 

Our investments, our nest eggs, forget it. They have stayed flatter than our television screens for about a decade. And perhaps most troubling is that our kids have such limited prospects as they emerge from universities into the world of work.

And something that troubles all Americans, with the possible exception of Paul Krugman, is the limitation of our government. Since the Great Depression Americans have seen government as our ultimate backstop.  Now that is gone.  We have no backstop but ourselves.

Even the millions of Americans who followed Mr. Obama down the path of hope and change are beginning to ask when will Americans get back to work and how we will ever repay the debt America is accumulating.  We are in denial when we hear that in a few years every US household owns $546,000 of the federal government’s debt.  We don’t like seeing the grey-haired fellow bagging our groceries because his retirement planning went awry.  We don’t like reading about thousands of teachers being laid off.  We don’t like these things because each represents a piece of the new American reality; an America that cannot have it all.

Our new reality is beginning to seep into the American consciousness, but it will take time before we all understand the new rules.  In the meantime, we will continue to want it all. 

This new reality came to mind the other day when Governor Doyle announced, with some fanfare, the state purchase of 18,400 acres land in northern Wisconsin, which will be protected from development.  This particular purchase cost state government $8.3 million - paid out of the $86 million the state spends each year to preserve land.  A person unfamiliar with America’s appetite might ask why, with the state budget awash in red ink, state government would be spending so much money to bank land.

The state budget is indeed troubled.  The Pew Center on the States not only said Wisconsin has one of the 10 worst budgets in the country, but also pegged the budget shortfall in the next budget at $2 billion.  Even those of us who are advocates of the Stewardship Fund and land preservation, have to admit that buying land at this moment in our history is tough to explain.  Land preservation would appear to be a luxury that we can hardly afford.  But onward we push, buying up land and setting it aside, acting as though the state treasury was bulging with money. 

And why do we persist in this seemingly unaffordable endeavor?  Well, if you have been paying attention, you know that it’s the same reason that we put that flat screen television in the bathroom; it’s because we want it all. 

-June 28, 2010