people together. It is hard to build democratic institutions on such unfirm ground and few survive for long or function well. Failing democracies are fertile fields for dictatorships that take over but serve their people badly. With all its faults colonialism was a governmental system that performed better for its constituencies than most of the independent governments that took its place. But even in the most advanced and enlightened of the western democracies, governments are not performing even tolerably well. Here in the greatest nation on earth we can't even manage our fiscal affairs where the theory of the case is simple - cut expenditures, increase revenues or both until the deficit is eliminated. But we don't have an accurate governmental balance sheet that shows the value of our assets. We don't know our income or our cash flow. We have never put the infrastructure on the balance sheet nor depre- ciated it nor provided a fund for its replacement as it wears out. This item alone is estimated to cost over $2 1/2 trillion in the next ten years. Our failure to face up to the fiscal problem in part results from our unwillingness to make some difficult choices on the social side of the equation. We haven't yet created a strong constituency that will sustain a drive for deep cuts in governmental expenditures. Even with a Republican President and a Republican Senate, the federal debt is up 74% and the best we can brag on is that "we've slowed down the rate of increase in the cost of government." The difficult problems we face at home are more than matched by those we face abroad. The mantle of world leadership has fallen on our reluctant shoulders. We wear it uneasily but wear it we must. 9