Yes, taxpayers get screwed no matter what. As Americans try to do the right thing by cutting their spending, retailers, malls and hotels will lose money. And developers are already asking for a bailout.

Homebuilders are lobbying for a $22,000 credit for new-home purchases. It certainly makes sense to encourage the building of new homes when there are 2.5 million vacant houses and an 11-month supply of existing homes for sale. I await the future bailout demands of Rolex retailers, Porsche dealers, and caviar makers.

My parents believed that they could provide a better life for their 3 children. They worked hard and sacrificed: My Dad toiled for 42 years as a truck driver for ARCO, bought used cars and never earned more than $32,000 per year. My parents deferred their own gratification and saved: They bought a 3-bedroom row home in Delaware County in 1955, never borrowed against it and methodically paid it off over 30 years. We didn’t eat out 3 times per week or go on exotic vacations.

My parents had only high-school degrees, but these two hard-working, blue-collar people from South Philly, through determined efforts, provided my siblings and me the opportunity to obtain college educations and climb the American social ladder.

The point is, the American Dream was not founded on wealth and materialism, rather, it revolves around achieving a better life based on the merits of your intelligence, hard work and contribution to the national community. There’s a moral aspect to the American Dream that’s been lost over time. James Truslow Adams addressed it in an essay he wrote in 1929:

"There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live. Surely these should never be confused in the mind of any man who has the slightest inkling of what culture is. For most of us it is essential that we should make a living...In the complications of modern life and with our increased accumulation of knowledge, it doubtless helps greatly to compress some years of experience into far fewer years by studying for a particular trace or profession in an institution; but that fact should not blind us to another—namely, that in so doing we are learning a trade or a profession, but are not getting a liberal education as human beings."

The crux of the problem is that Americans with a strong sense of morality are no longer steering the American ship.

Thomas Jefferson declared that Americans had the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. The government’s obligation is to protect this right. Representative Ron Paul bluntly speaks the truth about our government:

"The obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people."

Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Johnson Field further clarified “pursuit of happiness” in an 1884 opinion:

Among these inalienable rights, as proclaimed in that great document, is the right of men to pursue their happiness, by which is meant the right to pursue any lawful business or vocation, in any manner not inconsistent with the equal rights of others, which may increase their prosperity or develop their faculties, so as to give to them their highest enjoyment."

Our current system of incentives is inconsistent with the equal rights of others. The pursuit -- by any means necessary -- of excessive wealth, power, and influence has become the “happiness” we shoot for in the “Me” generation of today.