Sid Dinerstein spends most of his time running the Palm Breach County Florida Republican Committee, making speeches, building his party, working with School boards, coaching girl’s sports teams, and playing tennis.
Recently he added another pastime to his busy schedule: writing a book. “Adults Only: For People Who Love Their Country More than Their Party.” is crammed with solid advice for those readers who are disturbed by the current state of the union and society in general, the book lays out a common sense program for getting America back on the tracks. [Editor's Note: Get Sid Dinerstein's book — Go Here Now.]
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.com, Dinerstein explained why he launched a new career in writing the book and why he believes his suggestions should be implemented.
Newsmax: You’ve been around a long time engaged in a lot of pursuits. What caused you to write a book?
Dinerstein: As I said in the introduction to the book, this wasn’t my idea. Too many people came to me and said "Sid, you’re the only guy who knows how to connect the dots. They got me to sit down for a month to connect the dots and try to say things about our largest problems which get simplified when you get rid of all the static in the background." Now people read my book and say "My God, this makes so much sense."
Newsmax: Everything you say in the book is just plain common sense. Is that because you got rid of the static in the background?
Dinerstein: It’s common sense, but it’s the common sense that not only we have lost, but sort of legislated out of existence so that we can’t find it again. America is at risk of our best years being behind us. People have this sense of angst but they don’t really know why they are feeling so uncomfortable.
According to Dinerstein his book explains why Americans feel uncomfortable and then goes a step further and suggests “how we can get our comfort back.”
Newsmax: In the book you emphasize what you call “the entitlement mentality.” Can you explain what that is and what can be done about it?
Dinerstein: The entitlement mentality is not just about seniors and their so-called entitlements. When John Kennedy said "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," everybody was so moved, but in fact we didn’t listen to him. We have pretty much put the whole country on a welfare mentality so whether you are a large corporation or a poor single mom your mental frame is How do I get some of the government’s money for me?
When the whole country is on welfare, you no longer have a country because your currency will no longer have any value. For example, one of the biggest obstacles to solving our energy problems are the farmers. While farmers work hard to feed us, at the end of 70 years of welfare, I think it’s time for them to say thank you, instead of How big is my next farm bill?
If they’d do that and go back to doing what farmers are supposed to do and take the risks that all businessmen are supposed to take, we could just figure out which products we ought to be producing but more than that, which have implications for our energy shortage.
Newsmax: You mention ethanol, an alleged answer to our energy problems. Is it?
Dinerstein: What we do in this country is based on corn ethanol which simply doesn’t work. It takes seven gallons of fuel to create eights gallons of corn ethanol. It’s a total corporate welfare program. In the book I wrote about the sugar cane which would work, except that we pay two to three times the world price for our sugar by not allowing the other countries, meaning Latin American countries who also have sugar cane, to sell it to us at the cheaper world market price.
Newsmax: Has “Adults Only” gotten the kind of reception it richly deserves?
Dinerstein: I have had friends of mine who are far-left liberals tell me "Sid, I’ve read your book and I agree with every word." It goes right across the spectrum. The book doesn’t have a partisan word in it — there are no attacks on anybody or any support of an administration; it’s just an attempt to inject common sense into the conversation in America.
Our problems are large and growing larger, and our ability to solve them seems to be shrinking.
Newsmax: You stress the fact that we are putting our problems on the next generation instead of dealing with them ourselves. Is that what we’re doing with the $150 billion dollar stimulus program financed by phantom dollars we don’t have?
Dinerstein: Everything we do today as a country — everything — we put on the kid’s backs. The national debt increases $1.4 billion a day — a day!
There is nobody that is standing up and saying that we can agree or disagree with what we want, but we need to agree that we have to pay for what we want. Everybody has gotten the opposite idea. We can have anything we want because we don’t pay for a single thing . . . $150 billion dollars? We’re going to buy some 30-year bonds and stick it on the kids to pay for them down the line.
It is not possible for our children and grandchildren to have our standard of living without major changes in the way we do government and right now there is no consensus to make those changes. The kids don’t have a chance.
That’s why I wrote the book.
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