I have been infuriated by TARP and bailouts that messed with our free market by privatizing profits and socializing debts. I have watched both political parties facilitate this folly.

In the America I grew up in we didn't have Too Big to Fail, we had the Creative Destruction of capitalism. We didn't keep weak companies artificially alive, we let them go so that more dynamic companies with smarter business models, better goods and services, would take their place, giving all of us a higher standard of living. We let the market, the consumer, decide - we didn't force people to buy Edsels or drink New Coke they didn't want. We live without Packard, Studebaker, Hudson, and American Motors - we could live without Chrysler and General Motors. In the America I grew up in, you got a mortgage because you were qualified, not because you had a pulse.

I worry about how America looks to our young people, just out of college or graduate school. Many of them are forced to take jobs that don't require a college degree, let alone a law degree or MBA. Many of them are up to their eyeballs in private debt, as they watch their government saddling them with public debt that will burden the rest of their lives. We have always sacrificed for the next generation, not stolen from them. Instead of generational theft, we need generational thrift.

Some young people are moving back home, delaying marriage and the start of their own families. Even once they get their careers back on track, their lifetime earnings will suffer. Many will never catch up to where they would have been without the collapse.

The America they have experienced is one of less opportunity and fairness than their parents and grandparents had. They see a country where CEO's, who were paid about 30 times as much as the average American worker in 1970, are now paid more than 300 times as much. They see a country that had no net job growth in the last decade. In my lifetime, jobs in every other decade grew between 20 and 30%. They see a country where household net worth fell 4% in the last decade. In my lifetime, household net worth in every other decade grew between 30 and 60%.

I worry most that our young people will lose the most precious part of their American inheritance -- the boundless optimism and confidence, the can-do spirit that each generation, whether they built covered wagons or rockets to the moon, has bequeathed to the next. We don't need more wasteful government boondoggles. We need real innovation like getting rid of taxes on our productivity and having the Fair Tax--a consumption tax that doesn't punish work and creativity. Otherwise, our young people's scaled-back ambitions and expectations, both for themselves and their country, will become self-fulfilling prophecies of diminished success and power. That's my view and I welcome yours.

The New Year gives us a gate to the next chapter of our lives. We tend to look back to assess what we've learned from the past year and use the fresh start of a new calendar to promise ourselves that things will be different in the coming year.

I've learned this year that the more government tries to do to fix the economy, the worse it gets. I know they mean well, but spending money we don't have and borrowing money we can't afford to pay back really isn't working out for us.

It would be nice if in the New Year, the president and Congress would figure out that businesses could grow and create jobs - real jobs, if they weren't scared sick that they will have what little profit margin they are making go poof because of increased costs of doing business; whether it's health care taxes, huge energy cost hikes because of cap-and-trade, or the unionization of their employees. More than Americans want government to tinker with trying to repair the economy, we want to see jobs. If Congress really wants to help the economy, let me suggest they do the following:

1. Instead of their automatic pay raise at the first of the year, they should vote to cut their pay by 10 percent.

2. They should shut down every other month and spend the off month solely in their own districts, meeting with constituents and hearing from their bosses.

3. They ought to pledge that they will sponsor the Fair Tax, and promise that after 12 years, they will retire and not accept a congressional pension other than the Social Security that other Americans receive.

4. They should cut their staffs and budget by 15 percent to show real cost-saving stewardship.

5. They should pledge not to spend anything that isn't covered in a balanced budget and not to start any new program for at least two years.

You probably think that they won't do those things. Probably not. So here's the backup plan: Since they work for you, if they don't show responsible leadership and sacrifice, work really hard this year to give someone else a chance by firing the members of Congress that don't listen to you and hire someone who does.