By the time you read this column, we will hopefully know who the next president of the United States of America will be. However, the deadlines for columns are two days before the run date, so bear with me as I write about the election without the results.

I feel like people tend to say this every four years, but I truly think that this election will heavily determine the future of America. We have moved further and further away from a free market, we are growing our entitlement programs, we no longer value wise spending, and our government does not demand any sort of return on investments. The deficit is growing out of control, and what can’t go on forever, won’t. Eventually our government will run out of other people’s money to spend, and what happens then?

We like to look at countries like Greece, Spain and Italy and think that their financial crises could never happen in the U.S. We like to believe that we are more mature and protected than those people across the world that riot and get tear-gassed. We forget that the debt we rack up with China is made of real dollars that have to be paid back. We aren’t dealing with monopoly money as it sometimes seems, but dollars that are in such vast quantities that they are out of our scope of comprehension.

Unfortunately, we aren’t protected. Greece is what the U.S. will be in 20 years, only with far fewer guns. When the money runs out, when the not-so-free food stamps, welfare, unemployment and other entitlement programs run out, are U.S. citizens just going to sit down and say “Well, it was good while it lasted?” No. They won’t. We are a country where the ideals of action and accomplishment are deeply rooted in American tradition. We don’t approve of standing by and just let things happen.

However, there is a safer option that is afforded to each and every American citizen that can protect us from pandemonium if we use it correctly. We can vote. The privilege of voting has been beaten into us for so long that it’s cliché by this point, but it is still true. Many people across the world do not have the right to choose the government that governs them, but we do. We have the right to walk into a voting booth that has been bought with the blood of patriots. We have the right to choose the future of America. Do we want to be a country which promotes entitlement, which spends its citizens’ hard earned money with reckless abandon, which forces both consumers and producers to abide by commercial rules established out of the personal opinion of our leaders? Do we want to live in a country where the government finds it easier and more acceptable with each passing year to dictate the terms on which we live? I don’t think we do.

Whichever candidate wins, I hope that he realizes there is more at stake than his own personal philosophies. I hope he takes time to remember that they represent a government run for the people and by the people who voted them in. I hope he remembers that our country has a time-tested document in the Constitution that is there to limit the government and protect the people, not vice versa. I hope that the president is prepared to be responsible for the development of the U.S. for the years to come, and can lead us toward a brighter future.

Shameless Prediction of the Week: I’ve told people that, because Romney won the GOP nomination in May, numbers and historical analysis have indicated that he would win the presidency. I’m not calling a Republican blowout, but I’m not sure it will be that close. My Electoral College prediction is Romney 295-243, with Romney securing Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Colorado and Virginia. Obama will win Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Minnesota.

— Hunter Tipton is a senior in microbiology. He can be reached at [email protected].