The Beginning of the End ... Maybe.

As I write this, the stock market is heading up for the fifth business day in a row. As with all Americans, I hope that this indicates we're finding a "bottom" to the recession. If such optimism proves true, then we need to immediately turn our collective attention to creating a balanced federal budget and eliminating our national debt. And let's see if we can do so before our children have to assume the obligation.

I would like to put out one idea to help pay for the national debt: a national lottery. Run much like various state lotteries across the country, a national lottery could be a creative solution to refilling our national coffers. It might even pull in a goodly amount of foreign money, as people in other countries send in their dollars for a chance at a multi-million dollar payoff.

Once you finish laughing, I hope that you will give this idea some serious thought. If, on second examination, you believe such a lottery might be a good idea, I encourage you to write your congressman. Who knows? We might actually start a national campaign.

I do, however, offer a word of caution. No plan, not even one as creative as a national lottery, will be successful if it's not preceded - or at least accompanied by - a balanced budget. Otherwise, it will just become another case of pouring good taxpayer money down a rat hole.

Returning for a moment to the current positive stock market numbers, I have to ask if the recent taxpayer bailouts of industry and banks helped the situation? Personally, I find it doubtful. I'm reminded of an old summer camp song that goes, "You push the damper in and you pull the damper out and the smoke goes up the chimney just the same."

I still believe that economies build from the bottom up, and not the top down. If people have money in their pockets, the economy will prosper. And federal bailouts of banks and industries do little, if anything, to put money in the common man's pocket. Indeed, they actually take money out.