LOOK ALL AROUND

Look south. Many will tell you that's the source of the greatest problem facing the United States today. Illegal immigrants making their way across the border from Mexico. Taking American jobs. Taking American tax dollars. The Heritage Foundation, estimates the cost of illegal immigration to be about $89 billion annually or not quite $7 trillion over the next 75 years. That's a lot of money. And a lot more money and a lot of emotion have been spent over the last month fighting the issue to a standstill in Congress. Now. Look all around.

There are quite a few who'll tell you the growth of Social Security, Medicare, and other federal entitlement programs is the greatest problem facing the United States today. And these folks are right.

The nonpartisan General Accountability Office (GAO) estimates the current cost of the benefits promised by Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the other entitlement programs to be just over $50 trillion or about $170,000 for every living American. Said another way, we are already on the hook for this much because Americans expect to receive the benefits the programs have already promised them.

And as GAO Chief, David M. Walker, recently noted, the amount goes up every second of every minute of every hour of every day. And there's no getting out of this obligation.

Credit the Minute Men, the unions, and talk radio with fanning the flames on the immigration issue. Most everyone seems to have an opinion on the issue even if relatively few know all the facts. But the facts are clear with the coming entitlement crisis.

Who'll draw attention to and inflame emotion on this issue? Where's the moral outrage?

Indeed, where is the sense of morality at all?

The massive debt Congress is passing along to our children and grandchildren is unconscionable. Ignoring the issue is a moral failing of every member of Congress and every presidential candidate.

Please take a moment to contact your members of Congress and your presidential candidate of choice and ask for a written response.