Poverty is up. Health care costs have exploded; home heating and gas prices are at record levels; college costs are soaring. Wages can't keep up. Good jobs are getting shipped overseas—we've lost three million manufacturing jobs over the last seven years, and now white collar jobs are heading in the same direction. Companies are cutting back on benefits, abandoning pensions and passing on health care costs. Families are scrambling to make ends meet. In 2005, households spent more than they earned for the first time since 1933.¹ Household debt is at record levels, as basic expenses like housing and transportation consume a record share of family income.

One income can rarely support a family anymore, so both parents in most families work. Too often that leaves children alone after school and makes it hard for families to find time together—much less to cope with sickness or medical emergencies. Family-leave policies, day care and after-school programs haven't kept pace with the new reality. For the nation, the story isn't much better. America remains a rich country, blessed with natural resources and hard-working people. But we're living on borrowed money and not using those loans to make the investments we need for the future. We've almost doubled our national debt over the past seven years and squandered the money largely on tax cuts and costly military actions. We haven't taken the necessary steps to end our dangerous addiction to foreign oil or regain our competitive edge in the global economy. We're hemorrhaging jobs and running dangerously high deficits. We must change course.

This problem is adapted from The Campaign for America's Future book “Straight Talk 2007: Common Sense for the Common Good." You can read or download the full book here.