A recent report by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) describes America's long term fiscal outlook:

Weaknesses in the economy and financial markets—and the government’s response to them—have contributed to near-term increases in federal deficits, which reached a record level in fiscal year 2009. While a lot of attention has been given to the recent fiscal deterioration, the federal government faces even larger fiscal challenges that will persist long after the return of financial stability and economic growth…GAO’s simulations continue to show escalating levels of debt that illustrate that the long-term fiscal outlook remains unsustainable

The GAO tells us why our fiscal outlook is unsustainable:

roughly 92 cents of every dollar of federal revenue will be spent on the major entitlement programs and net interest costs on the debt by 2019. This is due largely to a substantial increase in interest on federal debt…by 2030 there will be little room for “all other spending,” which consists of what many think of as “government,” including national defense, homeland security, investment in highways and mass transit and alternative energy sources, plus smaller entitlement programs such as Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and farm price supports.

The GAO estimates assume that federal revenue will be 20.2% of GDP, which is already higher than historical levels of taxation.

Currently, our federal debt is over $12 trillion. Here are the debt projections for the next 10 years.

2010 – $14 trillion.
2011 – $15.2 trillion
2012 – $16.2 trillion
2013 – $17.1 trillion
2014 – $18 trillion
2015 – $19 trillion
2016 – $20 trillion
2017 – $21 trillion
2018 – $22 trillion
2019 – $23 trillion

As you can see, our debt is rising at roughly $1 trillion each year.

These numbers do not include the health care reform that is making it's way through Congress, which will be a major increase in the entitlement programs that are already unsustainable. The recently released Senate health care bill is estimated to cost $849 billion over 10 years, but those numbers are bogus. They are hugely underestimated, because Congress uses sleight of hand to arrive at those numbers. The full benefits of the health care bill don't start until 2014, but the taxes (about 14 different taxes in all) start in 2010, skewing the true costs if the bill. If you start calculating the cost of the Senate health care bill from when the benefits start, that makes the cost more like $1.5-2 trillion. Even the $849 billion rigged figure depends on massive Medicare cuts that Congress will probably never have the guts to make (they never have before), along with the fact that the doc-fix of $247 billion was separated out to make the Senate bill look cheaper. As always, our dishonest Congress is being dishonest about the true costs of health care reform. This reform will almost certainly add even more to the deficit and debt, unless even more taxes are raised to pay for it.

There are two ways to deal with our unsustainable fiscal problem. True conservatives (not pretenders like Bush) would say reduce government spending, which has spun completely out of control over the last decade. This is known as the smart way out. Liberals would say increase taxes to levels unprecedented in American history. It would probably take a 40-50% increase in tax levels to pay for all our committments and begin paying down our unsustainable, dollar-killing debt. Such tax increases would also have a business-killing, dampening effect on our economy at a time when unemployment is already skyrocketing and we're trying to climb out of a recession. This is known as the stupid way out.

It's up to you America. They called my father's era The Greatest Generation. From what I'm seeing so far, I'm calling my own era The Greediest Generation. We are bankrupting our children's futures for our own momentary comfort. We can't even face the unsustainable reality that WE CREATED. We just pretend it doesn't exist, while our crooked politicians drive us deeper into the hole and tell us how much they are helping us at the same time. Shame on them, and shame on us for letting them get away with it. Shame on us even more for voting for the biggest liars, the ones who promise us the most goodies as they abandon all sense of financial responsibility and sell us down the river.

Do you believe our federal government is competent ? Do you think it's doing a good job of solving our problems ? Are we getting our money's worth ? Let's run through a checklist.

The government declared a war on poverty about 45 years ago. How'd that work out ? We may not have an exit strategy from Afghanistan yet, but you'd think we'd have one for the war on poverty after all these years. Nope.

What about the war on drugs ? We've put a lot of American citizens in prison on drug charges, giving us the highest incarceration rate in the world here in the land of the free, but drugs are still everywhere. If you want to find illegal drugs in America, you don't have to look very hard.

How about the problem of illegal immigration ? I bet you didn't know that the government fixed that problem back in 1986 with the Immigration Reform And Control Act. Listen to this excerpt from the signing statement from that Act, and tell me if it sounds at all familiar to any discussions of the issue we are having today:

In 1981 this administration asked the Congress to pass a comprehensive legislative package, including employer sanctions, other measures to increase enforcement of the immigration laws, and legalization. The act provides these three essential components. The employer sanctions program is the keystone and major element. It will remove the incentive for illegal immigration by eliminating the job opportunities which draw illegal aliens here. We have consistently supported a legalization program which is both generous to the alien and fair to the countless thousands of people throughout the world who seek legally to come to America. The legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight and, ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans.

In 1986, we had approximately 2.7 million illegal immigrants. Now the estimate is around 13 million, and we're having the exact same discussions about illegal immigration that we had 23 years ago. Good job, government.

Maybe I'm being too harsh. Some of you might be thinking of all the super neato government programs that have been put in place to help us, like the Social Security ponzi scam, or Medicare, which is going broke. Plus, Social Security and Medicare comprise the lion's share of our unfunded liabilities, which, when added to our stated national debt of $11.7 trillion, make the real national debt around $56.4 trillion (note – the national debt figures are outdated as soon as they are printed because the debt is rising so fast. The real national debt might be over $58 trillion by now).

FYI – If you want to see the startling truth behind the U.S. economy, check out the U.S. Debt Clock. We are becoming a hollowed out shell of an economic power. It can't last. America, as it stands, is not sustainable (and our idiotic mainstream media wonders what all the protesting is about. "It must be racism," they say. Why do they call those media types "the elite" anyway ? They sound like a bunch of imbeciles to me).

Our government has done a bang up job of not eliminating poverty, drugs, and illegal immigration. It has also done a fine job of living beyond it's means and selling us down the river with massive debt that will destroy the hopes of future generations. It was also instrumental in creating the housing bubble that led to the current recession.

So, obviously, the correct path to follow now is to hand another 17% of our economy over to that same government to "fix" health care, right ? I mean, the government has such an excellent track record of solving economic problems (NOT). Much better than that miserable failure known as the free market (that made us the wealthiest country in the history of the world). After all, the free market has failed to rein in health care costs, right ? Wrong. The government has inserted itself into health care to such an extent that the free market isn't really functioning in health care. The government got into health care in a big way in 1965, and it's influence has grown ever since. This is also the same time period that health care costs have spiraled out of control.

I was listening to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) yesterday on television talking about how there isn't enough competition among private health care insurers, how some states are dominated by only a few insurance companies. What Schumer didn't bother to mention was that insurers are limited by law from competing on a national level, across state lines. So, we have the government restricting private health insurance choice on the one hand, and then complaining that there isn't enough choice on the other hand. I don't know how some of these politicians peddle this nonsense with a straight face. Schumer, of course, wasn't advocating to open up competition on a national level among diverse insurance companies. No, because that would make sense. We can't have that. Instead, Schumer was advocating for a public health insurance option, where the government competes directly against the private sector, as if that's even possible. It isn't. Schumer kept saying that government competing with private industry is fine, as long as there's "a level playing field." Schumer said that with a straight face too, somehow. The idea that there could ever be a level playing field between the federal government and the private sector is absurd on it's face, as is Chuck Schumer. A private industry trying to compete with the federal government in health care insurance would be like trying to play a football game against a government team, where the government got to pick the players on both teams, got to pick the referees, got to change the rules of the game after every play, and made your team pay the expenses of it's team. There's little doubt who would win the game with such a "level playing field."

I'd have much more respect for the politicians peddling the public health care option if they'd just tell the truth about it. It's not about "keeping the insurance companies honest" any more than Medicare was about "giving Seniors a choice" in 1965. It's about government control. Don't lie to me and tell me anything different.

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) computed the day of the year when all the costs of government at all levels are paid for. ATR calls it Cost Of Government Day. This year, that day fell on August 12, 2009. It has taken from January 1st until now to pay for all the costs of federal, state, and local government, plus the regulatory burdens imposed by the government. This year's Cost Of Government Day was almost a full month later than it was in 2008. The biggest reason for the change was the recession, which sparked a massive Keynesian government spending spree (TARP, stimulus, etc). Another reason is the unchecked growth of unfunded entitlement liabilities (Medicare, Social Security, etc).

This year, the cost of government consumed 61.34% of national income. Working people toil 224 days of the year to pay for their government. You can view the Cost Of Government Day report for 2009 here. It makes for some very interesting and disturbing reading.

Put in it's simplest terms, this means that we are becoming slaves to incremental government tyranny. ObamaCare and Cap-and-Trade are some of the next steps in that planned process.

The breakdown of Cost Of Government Day is as follows:
- We work 111 days to pay for federal spending.
- We work 49 days for state and local spending.
- We work 42 days for federal regulations.
- We work 23 days for state and local regulations.

Cost Of Government Day varies from state to state, of course, because each state and locality has a differing burden. The state with the least burden (most free) in 2009 was Alaska (where that radical Sarah Palin governed. No wonder liberals hate her). Predictably, the states with the highest government burdens (least free) were liberal states, with Connecticut being the highest, followed by New Jersey, New York, and California. Liberals LOVE to give their hard-earned money to the government (well, actually, they love to give other people's hard-earned money to the government). Liberals exhibit a plantation mentality, with the government playing the role of master, and the liberals playing the happy slaves whose every need is met by Massuh (at the price of their liberty and free choice). This somehow makes sense to them, though I can never understand WHY it makes sense to them. I run from it like I'm headed for the Underground Railroad.

When you're working 7-8 months per year just to pay off the government burdens, it's only natural that you will be poorer than you'd be otherwise, but somehow liberals can never figure this out either. They are always clamoring for more and more government spending, taxation, and regulation. It's their version of Stockholm Syndrome. They loves them some Massuh. Massuh is SO very good and kind. Massuh is SO very smart.

In an irony so thick you could cut it with a knife, liberals, the willing slaves, call people "racists" when they resist the big government takeovers being planned by President Barack Obama. They actually think it's racist to want to be free from government tyranny, all because Obama's skin is black. They can't see past that singular, irrelevant fact. At this point, crying racism is nothing more than the liberal Pavlovian response to freedom. They can't help it, and they don't understand what the rest of us are so upset about. They don't get that most people don't want to become wards of the state. They are completely baffled when people don't want the government to takeover every aspect of their lives, so they use "racist" as a sort of intellectual firewall. Go figure.

Back to the Cost Of Government Day report. One of the many myths the report destroys is the idea that Obama's stimulus package was actually an economic stimulus package. It wasn't. It was mostly just a bunch of big government appropriations spending under the guise of stimulus, along with spending to prop up, guess who? – the government ("never let a crisis go to waste"). Here's the breakdown of spending in the alleged stimulus package:

- $90 billion for “State Fiscal Relief;”
- $71.3 billion for the Department of Labor, Health and
Human Services and Education (including $16.6 billion for
Student Financial Assistance, $13 billion for Education for
the Disadvantaged, $12.2 billion for Special Education and
$9.7 billion for National Institutes of Health);
- $61.1 billion for Transportation, Urban Development and
Housing (including $27.5 billion for Highway
Construction);
- $57.3 billion for Assistance for Unemployed Workers and
Struggling Families (including 39.2 billion for
Unemployment Compensation);
- $53.6 billion for the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund;
- $50.8 billion for Energy and Water (including $16.8 billion
for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy);
- $26.4 billion for Agriculture, Rural Development and Food
and Drug Administration (including $20 billion for the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program);
- $25.1 billion for Health Insurance Assistance;
- $20.8 billion for Health Information Technology;
- $15.8 billion on Commerce, Justice and Science (including
$4.7 billion on the Broadband Technology Opportunities
Program);
- $10.6 billion on Interior and Environment (including Clean
Water and DrinkingWater State Revolving Funds);
- $7.9 billion on Defense and Homeland Security;
- $6.7 billion on Financial Services and General Government
(including $5.4 billion on the Federal Buildings Fund);
- $4.3 billion on Military Construction and Veteran Affairs.

Another interesting item in the report is how the tax burden of the various states affects the population and prosperity of those states. The report states that between 1997 and 2007, the ten states with the highest tax burdens lost 3 million citizens and $82 billion in income. During the same period, over 2.6 million people moved to the states with no income tax, bringing in about $98.5 billion in income. Hmmm. Those no income tax states must be racist.

Maybe the most important thing to remember about President Obama's first year in office is this – in 2009, taxpayers are confronted with a federal budget that raises spending to over $9,000 for every man, woman and child in America—forever. That's $36,000 for a family of four. EVERY YEAR. And our President has only just begun to "change" America. Change into what, I shudder to think.

In conclusion, keep going to those Tea Parties and townhall meetings. Keep telling your Congressperson what you think. The only ones who can stop this tyrannical government (and it started long before Obama arrived on the scene) is we, the people. Ignore all the name-calling you endure from the leftist slaves and their pet slave media. They are the problem. You are the solution.

Barney Frank (D-VT) wants the federal government to decide how much Wall Street executives (and all other executives of private companies) are paid. Barney also wants the government to decide how they are paid. Legislation to ban incentive-based pay for private corporations has been approved by the House Financial Services Committee.

I don't know where in the U.S. Constitution the federal government thinks it obtains the authority to do this, but, hey, we don't use that musty old Constitution thingy anymore anyway. The notion of limiting centralized governmental power (federalism) envisioned by the founding fathers is as outdated as bell bottomed jeans. These days, we seem to be climbing all over ourselves to give the federal government all the power it wants (totalitarianism). The statists are on the march, making all the same false promises the statists always make, the false promises that never quite seem to materialize (FYI – health care reform = forcing all Americans to buy health care insurance and then having the government determine what medical procedures you are allowed to have, in case you haven't figured that out yet).

Here is Barney's rationale for limiting executive pay:

"The problem with executive compensation is essentially, from the systemic standpoint, that it gives perverse incentives," said Frank, a Democrat. Without penalties for bad bets, the system means "heads you win, tails you break even," he said.

Perverse incentives. That means people shouldn't be rewarded for driving their companies into the ground. They should be held accountable instead. I think we can all agree with that, if not with the idea that the federal government should dictate people's salaries. That is so……Soviet.

Let's continue with these ideas of accountability and perverse incentives. As of July 31st, 2009, the federal debt stood at $11,617,400,889,464.57. That's over $11.6 trillion. As soon as I write these words, they are outdated, because the national debt is now higher. The debt has increased by $3.89 billion PER DAY since September 2007. In addition, the federal government is projected to run nearly a $2 trillion deficit in 2009. We paid $451 billion in interest on the federal debt in 2008. This year it will be much higher. The interest on the debt is money flushed down the toilet (or sent to a foreign government, like China) that could easily pay for any imaginable health care reform we could dream up. Instead, our federal government has burdened every American citizen with roughly $38,000 in debt. The federal government is the poster child for incompetence.

This means the federal government, if viewed as a corporation (FedCorp), would be the worst run corporation in the entire history of the world (with the possible exception of those defunct Soviets we're trying to emulate). So, how are we holding FedCorp accountable ? Why, we're about to hand the entire health care system over to them !!! We're going to reward the worst company ever, FedCorp, by handing it control over 16% more of our economy. Talk about perverse incentives. This is equivalent to handing the entire energy sector over to Enron. FedCorp has shown NO ability to be responsible managers of taxpayer dollars, so, naturally, let's keep giving them ever more and more. That's the ticket. And never mind that the part of health care FedCorp already controls, Medicare/Medicaid, has such massive unfunded liabilities that it is threatening to destroy our economy down the road. If not addressed, the unfunded entitlement liabilities will hit our economy with such an economic tidal wave that the current recession will look like a ripple in a pond by comparison.

While we're on the subject of salaries, FedCorp is holding itself accountable for it's putrid mismanagement by…..giving all FedCorp's civilian employees a 2.9% pay raise in 2010. This is after Congress voted itself a 2.8% pay raise in January 2009, with the country in the depths of the recession. Apparently, accountability and perverse incentives don't apply to FedCorp, only to that horribly greedy entity known as the private sector (the sector that produces all our goods and services). FedCorp is spitting directly in your faces, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer. YOU tighten your belts. THEY get raises.

There are so many examples of the federal government throwing away taxpayer dollars that I could never list them all. This post would be a thousand pages long if I tried. Go to the website YouDontKnowJack to see some examples of how just one Congressman, Jack Murtha (D-PA), aka, the King Of Pork, throws YOUR money around to his cronies and special interests. It's disgusting.

And it wasn't that much better when the Republicans were in charge. During the Bush years, with Republicans controlling Congress, government spending STILL skyrocketed. Federal spending went from $2 trillion to $3 trillion per year during Bush's tenure (and those guys were supposed to be conservatives ??? I don't think so). The only way the Bushies were conservative is if you compare them to Obama and the Democrats, who are trying to match Bush's 8-year federal spending increase total ($1 trillion) in their FIRST YEAR. If Bush was the frying pan, Obama is the fire. I find myself longing for the return of Bill Clinton and his Republican Congress. At least those guys realized the economy was EVERYTHING. Those guys look like geniuses compared to Bush and Barry, and even Clinton ran net deficits and added $1.5 trillion to the debt. Things have been so bad since then that Clinton and his GOP'ers seem like the good old days.

Our federal government is so far out of control that I barely know where to start. This post is only a drop in the bucket in trying to describe it. FedCorp is like a bunch of crack addicts with our money. They can never get enough. With an addict, there's only one cure. You have to MAKE them stop. WE have to make them stop. WE have to get rid of the whole bunch of them. WE have to vote them all out of office and start over. That's the only way WE can make a difference, the only way WE can make the federal crackheads stop. Barring that, WE are screwed. Barring that, America, the land of the free, will very soon be OVER. There is only so much money that FedCorp can spend. There are only so much taxes that FedCorp can take from us. We're on the express train to poverty as long as this continues. Wake up, America. Your country is disappearing before your very eyes.

One of the talking points used by those favoring a single-payer health care system is that Medicare's administrative costs are FAR lower than those of private insurance companies. Here's liberal columnist and writer Joe Conason (whose latest book was titled 'The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth') parroting that point at Truthdig.com:

Private insurers consistently spend more on overhead and administration than Medicare. To anyone who shares the broad prejudice against government, the difference will be startling, although these numbers are very well known to health experts. The average overhead cost of Medicare is roughly 2 or 3 percent, far below the administrative costs of private insurers, which range between 27 and 40 percent.

Wow. According to Conason, there would be a 25-37% savings in overhead if we go to a universal Medicare-type government single-payer insurance plan. That's GREAT ! Sign me up !

Well, there is one teeny weeny little problem with Conason's statement…

It's a big ole pile of stinking cow flop. Not even remotely factual. For a guy who wrote a book about right-wingers distorting the truth, Conason is distorting the bejesus out of the truth. Here's why:

First of all, the 2% figure for Medicare's administrative costs comes from a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate. That much is true. However, the CBO expresses administrative costs as a percentage of Medicare's total patient costs. Because Medicare patients are elderly and suffer from more health issues than the general population, Medicare patients incur a lot more per patient expense than the general population demographic that is covered by private insurers. That distorts the real administrative costs of Medicare. Here's the Council For Affordable Health Insurance (CAHI) to explain:

Medicare calculates administrative costs as a ratio of identified administrative costs divided by claims. In 2003, the average medical cost for Medicare was estimated to be about $6,600 per person per year (because of the nature of Medicare’s beneficiary pool of older and disabled people), while the average medical cost for private health insurance, excluding out-of-pocket cost, was $2,700 per person per year. Because of the higher cost per beneficiary, Medicare’s method of calculation makes administrative costs, albeit unintentionally, appear to be lower than they really are. Indeed, if the numbers were adequately “handicapped,” they [Medicare] would be in the 6 to 8 percent range.

To illustrate this, let's assume that both Medicare and private insurers have a fixed per patient administrative overhead of $132 per patient, exactly the same. If we express this as a percentage of patient costs, that makes it appear to be a 2% administrative overhead for Medicare (based on $6600 spent per patient), and a 4.9% overhead for private insurers (based on $2700 spent per patient), 2 1/2 times as much. This would make Medicare appear to be more efficient from an administrative standpoint even if their administrative costs were identical to those of private insurers. That's the first way administrative costs are skewed.

Second, Medicare doesn't include everything as administrative cost in the same way that private insurers are required to do. These are Medicare's hidden costs that don't appear in the CBO estimate. Here's more information from CAHI:

Company Policies — Executives and boards of directors consider, debate and decide company policy; in Medicare that function is often handled by Congress and its legislative staff. Setting program policy requires time and money not reflected in Medicare’s official administrative cost estimates. Just imagine all of the congressional and administrative staff time and effort devoted to creating, debating, promoting, opposing and ultimately passing the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. One might compare it to a huge new corporate venture or restructuring. Yet not a dime of the money and time spent on that months-long public debate appear in Medicare’s administrative costs.

Management — Businesses must include management costs in their administrative costs: Medicare doesn’t. The salaries of those professionals at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), from Dr. Mark McClellan down, are excluded from Medicare’s administrative cost estimates, as are the building costs to house that part of the leadership team. Private insurers don’t have that luxury.

Raising Capital — Private industry has to raise capital, usually by selling stock or borrowing funds. And if an insurance company borrows money to pay for a building, it must pay interest on the loan. In other words, in the private sector there is a cost of capital. Of course, the federal government also raises capital and borrows money to pay Medicare claims, and it even pays itself interest on some of that borrowed money. But it includes none of these costs in its administrative estimates; it simply takes (or will take) the money from taxpayers. And while Medicare’s “cost of capital” is big now, it will grow exponentially in the future as Medicare outlays grow faster than the Part A payroll tax [the Medicare/SocSec unfunded liability has reached $107 trillion].

Premiums and Commissions — One of the most common complaints is that the private sector has to pay agents to market and sell its products, which, critics contend, the government doesn’t have to do. Well, not exactly. You may have noticed that CMS has been heavily involved lately in promoting the new Medicare drug benefit. Nothing wrong with that, but those are marketing costs, which are ignored in Medicare’s administrative numbers. Premiums are the primary way private insurers obtain the funds they use to pay claims. But the government also has to bring in funds in order to pay Medicare claims. How does it do that? Through taxes. Employers, the IRS and the Social Security Administration are, in effect, the sales force and collection arm for the Medicare program. Workers and employers currently split the 2.9 percent payroll tax that funds Medicare Part A. Employers, of course, have to handle the administrative functions of getting that money to the government. Thus, that part of Medicare’s “premium collection” actually shows up in employers’ administrative costs — including, ironically, those of insurers collecting that 2.9 percent for the government — rather than Medicare’s. Revenue to pay the government’s share of Part B — 75 percent of the program’s costs — comes from general revenues collected by the IRS. And the Social Security Administration collects the 25 percent of the Part B program that comes from seniors’ Social Security checks. Yet again, those “collection costs” are ignored in Medicare administrative cost estimates.

Claims Processing and Fraud — Medicare pays claims, millions and millions of them. The claims volume is so heavy that there is little time to do anything else — like scrutinize and review the providers’ bills, check with providers if something looks amiss and withhold payment until discrepancies have been resolved. Rather, Medicare is set up to catch problems primarily in cases of massive fraud and abuse, and it does that through the Inspector General in the Department of Health and Human Services, not CMS. In other words, while insurers see claims oversight as responsible stewardship and a collaborative effort to ensure proper payment, HHS operates more as a policing effort [Medicare fraud is estimated at $60 billion per year].

Premium Taxes — Every state imposes a tax on premiums collected, usually running in the 1 to 3 percent range. Those taxes are factored in as part of a company’s administrative costs. Obviously Medicare has no equivalent. But it highlights the point that part of the insurance industry’s administrative costs are not because the private sector is inefficient, but because government is taxing it and imposing regulations and unfunded mandates (that is, it tells the private sector to do something, but doesn’t reimburse its costs). There is something a little disingenuous about imposing unwanted taxes and regulations on an industry and then criticizing it because its administrative costs are higher than the untaxed government program.

Now you know a little more of the truth about administrative costs, and how the numbers are so heavily skewed in the government's favor. But the question remains, does Medicare have lower administrative costs than the private sector ? With all it's unfair advantages, you'd think so. CAHI admits it's very difficult to estimate the true costs of administering Medicare. In a 1994 study, CAHI found Medicare's administrative costs to be significantly higher than those of the private sector, but CAHI came up with a the following results in it's 2003 study:

we calculate Medicare’s administrative costs to be 5.2 percent in 2003, while the private sector runs 8.9 percent when commissions, profit and premium taxes are excluded, and 16.7 percent when those factors are included.

Medicare is still less by 3.4% according to CAHI's 2003 study, until profit and taxes are added in. Because profit and taxes are fluid, obviously those number can change, but they are still a factor. Yahoo Finance shows the average net profit margim in the health insurance industry to be 3% right now, for what it's worth.

A recent article by the Heritage Foundation actually showed that the per patient administrative overhead for Medicare was higher than the equivalent private insurance overhead from the years 2000-2005. Heritage based it's numbers on CMS (Medicare) data and Census Bureau extrapolations. There's a graph at the link explaining the numbers. After Heritage published it's results, the worst economist in the world and former Enron adviser, Paul Krugman of the NY Times, attempted to refute the Heritage Foundation with some statistics of his own (while ignoring Heritage's actual data and simultaneously launching ad hominem attacks against Heritage). Then Heritage attempted to refute Krugman's refutation. And so it goes.

Are Medicare's administrative costs cheaper ? I don't know. Maybe a little, or maybe not at all. Beats me, but I know one thing for sure. Guys like Joe Conason are lying through their teeth. Where did he pull those figures about private insurer overhead being 27-37% from anyway ? I never could find any corroborating info on that. Maybe he pulled it from his "anal"ytic file.

The Senate formally apologized for slavery yesterday, one hundred and forty four years too late, one hundred and forty four years after slavery was abolished.

Do we all feel better now ? A bunch of people who had nothing whatsoever to do with slavery have apologized for it. Now we know that America doesn't condone slavery (and here I thought the Civil War settled that issue). Thank goodness. All those American pro-slavery groups can go pound salt. If there are any, that is, which there aren't (I hope).

But even the Senate's unaminous and meaningless kumbayah vote to apologize for slavery isn't without controversy here in grievance-based America, where it seems everyone feels slighted over something. The Senate's slavery apology contained a disclaimer which stated the apology didn't authorize any reparations claim for the descendants of slaves.

Cue the outrage. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus objected to the reparations disclaimer.

Sigh.

To be clear, I believe reparations for slavery were in order, but they were in order 144 YEARS AGO, not now. They were in order for people who actually WERE slaves. There are no reparations in order for people who are six or seven generations removed from slavery, for people who have the same civil rights as everyone else, for people who even have MORE civil rights than everyone else (affirmative action). I agree with President Obama, who said the best reparations are "good schools in the inner city." Obama embodies the lunacy of the reparations argument. Should we pay reparations to Barack Obama, the most powerful man in the world, just because his skin contains the required amount of melanin ? I don't think so.

As I'm writing this, there are some teevee talking heads arguing about whether or not the coverage of Michael Jackson's death is motivated by race. One talking head is saying it is, that the media is talking about all Jackson's drug use because he is black.

Sigh.

That talking head must not remember the teevee coverage of the deaths of Heath Ledger, Kurt Cobain, Anna Nicole Smith, or Elvis Presley. The media wallowed in all the minutiae of each one's drug use, ad nauseum. It's about celebrity, not race.

Speaking of race-based issues, the Supreme Court reversed the appellate court ruling in the Ricci case, and ruled that New Haven discriminated against 19 firefighters (18 white and 1 hispanic) when they threw out the results of a promotion test because no blacks scored high enough to be promoted. New Haven officials were afraid of protests by civil rights groups if no blacks were promoted, so they discriminated against the 19 firefighters and denied them the promotions they earned. As with so many of these types of cases, the Supreme Court vote was split. The 5-4 majority decision was resisted by the Court's four liberal members (who think discrimination is fine and dandy as long as it's done against white people). Of note is the fact that President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, was one of those overturned by the Supremes. As one of the appellate court judges, Sotomayor thought discrimination against white people was hunky-dory in the Ricci case too.

Your going to hears lots of grievance-mongering and spin about the Ricci case, but there is no reason for any of it. This country was founded on the notion that all men are created equal, and equal protection under the law is mandated in our Constitution. We have a Civil Rights Act that says you may not discriminate against people based upon race. That goes for ALL races. That's why slavery and Jim Crow laws were wrong. All we should do in this country is give everyone the same opportunity (as in, all the New Haven firefighters had the SAME opportunity for promotion, regardless of race. They all took the same test. That's equality). When we go beyond that to dictate outcomes based solely upon race, we violate our own principles and make a mockery of them.

It's time to get beyond race, as well as all the other false constructs that divide us. I've watched the civil rights movement go from one of righteousness in the 60's to the "gimme" entitlement mindset of today. No. You aren't entitled to anything in this country, except the equal opportunity to achieve or fail. After that, it's up to you, no matter who you are.

In my last post, I touched on the problem of our huge unfunded entitlement liabilities, primarily Social Security and Medicare. Yesterday, the Obama administration admitted the problem exists. Yippee ! This may not seem like such a big step forward, but it is. Remember, for years the Democrats in Congress denied there was any problem whatsoever. They kept saying SS and Medicare were in fine shape for decades. Little to worry about. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said in 2005:

“Today’s report confirms that the so-called Social Security crisis exists in only one place — the minds of Republicans. In reality, the program is on solid ground for decades to come.”

That Harry is such a kidder. Fellow kidder and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), said this in 2005:

"There is no Social Security crisis. We all agree that there is a problem down the road that we should address before it becomes a bigger problem.”

But Pelosi has taken no action on Social Security or Medicare since becoming House leader. None. She also helped shoot down all previous Republican attempts at reform.

The Associated Press reports on the Obama administrations response to a Trustee report detailing the dire financial straits of SS and Medicare:

Social Security and Medicare are fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading for insolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warned Tuesday. Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, a year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner, trustees reported.

Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year, just as it did for the first time in 2008. The trustees project that the Medicare fund will be depleted by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year's report.

The Congressional Budget Office recently projected that Social Security will collect just $3 billion more in 2010 than it will pay out in benefits. A year ago, the CBO had projected that Social Security would have a much higher $86 billion cash surplus for the 2010 budget year, which begins Oct. 1.

Medicare's condition is more precarious.

The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government's "full faith and credit" but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes.

Did you catch that last part ? SS and Medicare are NOT BACKED BY ANY ACTUAL ASSETS, and funding them would require the government to BORROW MONEY OR RAISE TAXES. In other words, the government spent your trust funds. I've been trying to make people aware of this for years, and this has to be the first time in recorded history that our mainstream media has admitted the truth about our Ponzi scheme SS and Medicare "trust funds." Halellujah !!!

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

Of course, the AP is also admitting that our wonderful, compassionate politicians in Washington D.C. have been ripping us off for trillions and trillions of dollars for several decades, but I don't expect Obama or Congress to appoint any blue ribbon investigative panels or independent prosecutors to look into the matter anytime soon. We'd have to put a LOT of people in jail, and if we did put the deserving Congressers in jail for SS and Medicare fraud, well, let's just say the Democrats wouldn't be the majority party any longer.

Hate to say 'I told you so' to some of my more doubting readers, but I told you so. The federal government is worse than Enron and worse than Madoff. Far worse.

Here's Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner:

"The longer we wait to address the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security, the sooner those challenges will be upon us and the harder the options will be."

That's right, Tim. Btw, haven't Republicans been saying the same thing for years and years ? Yes, they have, including former President Bush.

The bottom line here is – get ready for massive tax increases. Massive. And lots of them.

The coup de grace of Democratic bs also came from Pelosi yesterday. Guess who San Fran Nan blames for the SS and Medicare crises she didn't think even existed previously ? If you said "Bush," you win a cigar. From cnsnews.com :

"The Trustee's reports reveal that, just as they left behind a record of recession, deficits and debt, the Bush administration's economic and fiscal mismanagement undermined the strength of Social Security and Medicare,” Pelosi said Tuesday in a news release. "The previous administration's shortsighted economic policies and fiscal recklessness have made the task of strengthening Social Security and Medicare for the future more difficult."

Un-be-liev-able. I better stop now, before I unleash a string of profanity aimed at our "esteemed" Speaker of the House. Is this woman genetically incapable of honesty ? She has no business leading the Democratic party in the House, or leading anything else, for that matter.

At the end of each fiscal year, the Treasury Department issues a financial report. The last such report was the 2008 Financial Report Of the United States Government. There is a link to the Citizens Guide version of the report here.

The stated 2008 deficit under President Bush was $454.8 billion. That was the largest budget deficit in American history in dollars, though President Obama's first year deficit of $1.8 trillion makes the 2008 deficit look like chump change by comparison. Every other projected Obama deficit over the next 10 years will also be larger than the 2008 largest deficit in history. Yet somehow, Obama's popularity ratings are still high. Go figure. Maybe bankruptcy is the new fiscal responsibility. I don't know. I don't get it.

But the American financial picture is much worse than those deficit numbers alone suggest. The real deficit in 2008 wasn't really $454.8 billion. It was actually much higher, because our federal government does it's accounting on a cash basis. Any debt obligations that are incurred, but have not yet paid, are treated as if they don't exist when it comes to the deficit. Those debts, however, do exist. In 2008, if you add in the debts accrued to pay federal employee and veterans benefits, the deficit balloons to over $1 trillion. If you add in all existing federal debt, we are in the red to the tune of $11 trillion. And if you add in all the accrued entitlement debts from Social Security, Medicare, and others, we are in the neighborhood of $55 trillion in the hole.

Now, imagine you are an incoming President looking at that 2008 financial report, and you can clearly see that America is on an unsustainable fiscal path. The report even states in plain English that America is on an unsustainable fiscal path. What would you do ? If your name is Barack Obama, you would….spend trillions more dollars, skyrocket the debt beyond all historical levels, permanently increase the cost of government, create an enormous new health care entitlement, and expand other entitlements. On top of that, you'd cut taxes for the middle class. In other words, if your name was Barack Obama, you'd do the most fiscally irresponsible thing imaginable. Because one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, I'd say Barack Obama must be insane.

But most of the media talking heads and so-called journalists seem to think Obama is some kind of genius. They act as if he is fixing all that ails our country, even though Obama has taken an already unsustainable fiscal path and made it far more unsustainable, and he did it all in only 100 days. Therefore, most of the media must be insane too. Then the media acts like the Americans who are calling for fiscal responsibility, like the Tea Party protesters for instance, are the insane ones. The media is openly hostile to them. What gives ? What on earth has happened to our country ? It's like a mass delusion has replaced all common sense. Up has become down. Has partisan spin so replaced rational thought that we can't even add and subtract anymore ? We can't even see what is right in front of our faces ? It seems so. I can't think of another reasonable explanation.

To add insult to injury, the same folks who are putting America on course to crash and burn at warp speed say they are doing it because they are "compassionate." They are destroying the future because they "care" about the common man. Are you freaking kidding me ? Please STOP "caring" about me, oh "compassionate" ones, before all your "caring" and "compassion" leaves me penniless and shivering out on the street.

The federal government of the United States Of America is the most broke institution in the entire history of planet earth, bar none. That's what all the "caring" and "compassionate" do-gooders have brought us. We couldn't be worse off if we let the Enron executives out of jail to run this country. Bernie Madoff might as well become the next President.

Btw, the state and local governments are another $160 billion in the red for this year. The house of cards is collapsing, and our government doesn't seem to care, not one bit.

An old Temptations song had the lyric "Vote for me, and I'll set you free." That's what our politicians are doing, setting us free – from our money. The Temptations had it right. It's a ball of confusion. That's what the world is today.

Hey, hey.

Baffle 'em with you-know-what.

If Washington D.C. has a credo, that must surely be it. The media isn't far behind.

But before I get into that, I'd like to take a moment to thank President Obama for saving us all from last week's swine flu pandemic (worldwide epidemic). Just think, if Bush was still the President, we'd probably all be dead now. Plus, Obama saved the country for the bargain basement price of $1.5 billion, which hasn't even been spent yet. Oh man, that Obama is GOOD.

The media was speculating today that the recession has bottomed out, because we only LOST 539,000 jobs in April. This rosy optimism came because the experts had predicted job losses of over 600,000. The media left out that the government hired 66,000 people to do the census, and the government hired many others as well (which accounts for almost the entire difference between the projections and the actual job numbers). Those government jobs are all on the taxpayer dime, of course, and add nothing to economic growth. The private sector is still hemorrhaging jobs as fast as ever, but I guess the media is looking for something positive to hand their hat on, because Obama is the president now, and that means CHANGE has come. Call me crazy, but I'll say the recession is over when we start CREATING jobs instead of losing them. The media's optimism comes in spite of the fact that GDP shrunk by 6.1% in the first quarter, and that we're $11 trillion in debt, and that we'll be running a $1.8 trillion deficit this year, and that we have massive deficits projected as far as the eye can see, and that Obama is projected to double the national debt in four years and triple it in eight years, and that unemployment is 8.9%, the highest in 25 years, and that we had a Treasury bond auction with demand so weak that we had to pay higher interest rates just to continue selling our long-term debt (which will raise Obama's deficit and debt projections even higher), and that our industrial base is vanishing, and that what's left of it is collapsing, and that we have massive unfunded entitlement liabilities looming on the horizon (growing at the rate of $2 trillion yearly), and that most of our state governments are broke, and that many banks failed the stress tests (they need $75 billion more bailout dollars, with more surely to come), and that credit still isn't flowing after $700 billion spent on TARP, and that companies all across the country are cutting back the hours of the workers they are retaining, and that if you add the folks who have fallen off the unemployment rolls to the unemployed numbers, unemployment comes out close to 15%, and that the federal government is spending dollars it doesn't have at an all-time record pace, and that the government is printing trillions of dollars out of thin air, and that the government has committed a total of $12 trillion thus far in fighting the recession, and that on top of that, Obama wants to raise energy prices through the roof and create lots more entitlements…………

I guess other than that, happy days are here again.

Oh yeah, and we're still fighting two wars, Obama has no idea what to do with the Gitmo prisoners, we're funneling money to Hamas, we're pondering whether to charge Bushco with war crimes, Pelosi's STILL lying about her knowledge of waterboarding even after the leaked CIA information proves she lied her butt off, Obama is looking for a Supreme Court Justice who is "empathetic" to certain groups as opposed to one who follows the law, the price index is rising in while we're in the depths of recession, Iran is almost certain to have nuclear weapons soon, the Pakistan government is in jeopardy (and Pakistan has nukes, which just maybe could be a problem if the Taliban gets their hands on)…

But other than that, everything's coming up roses.

Plus, Obama cut $17 billion from the budget. Golf clap for Obama. What the media left out of that story was that Obama isn't reducing the deficit by that $17 billion, oh no, he's going to use that money for OTHER government programs, so the net savings to taxpayers is ZERO. This is what passes for fiscal responsibility in the new Obama CHANGE era.

But it's all good. Thar's a new sheriff in town, and he reads that thar teleprompter REAL good.

Never mind that in order to avert fiscal armaggedon, Obama is going to have to come up with a tax increase of proportions never before contemplated in this country's history. By my reckoning, it will have to be at least $2 trillion per year to cover the deficits, interest on the debt, and the unfunded entitlements. It's either that or make drastic government spending cuts, and you know our new sheriff ain't 'bout to do that. Only them thar rightwing extremist fellas talk that kind o' crazy talk.

Welcome to the age of universal government.

I've gone on several rants on this blog previously about what a Ponzi scheme Social Security is. I now realize I've been thinking too small. It isn't just SS that is a Ponzi scheme. It's our entire federal government, and that Ponzi scheme is unraveling. The new funds required from the taxpayers can no longer keep up with the demand for funds the federal government requires. Like all Ponzi schemes, even one on as grand a scale as our government, it is destined to collapse.

But remember, put your hand over your mouth when you cough, and wash your hands frequently. Then everything should be fine.

President Obama met with 85 mayors today to tell them to spend their stimulus money responsibly. This strikes me as roughly equivalent to giving 85 alcoholics each a fifth of Jack Daniels and then telling them to drink responsibly. Right. Like that's gonna happen. The last I heard, the partisan breakdown of the group of mayors was 81 Democrats and 4 Republicans. I'm sure NBC will report this tonight as a "bipartisan group of mayors," with Obama "reaching across the aisle" to the Republicans because he gave each of the four a cookie or a glass of punch. I have a suggestion. Let's drop the word "bipartisan" from the political arena. There's nothing remotely resembling bipartisanship going on. The only reason the Democrats let Republicans Arlen Specter or Susan Collins be heard on the Porkulus monstrosity was because they needed their votes to pass it. No more, no less.

If you've recovered from the $1 trillion sticker stock of Porkulus (I haven't), well, BOHICA (bend over here it comes again). Saint Barack of Hopenchange has gazed down upon his flock from the mountaintop, saw homeowners who might default on their mortgages, and asked himself "What Would Jesus Do ?" He decided Jesus would rob Peter to pay Paul, and announced a government program to steal another $275 billion in future taxpayer money to bail out those poor unfortunate lambs who irresponsibly bought more house than they can afford.

One comforting note – $275 billion doesn't sound like so much money anymore, even though it is. When compared to the $3 trillion we've spent so far on the worst economic crisis in the entire history of the Federation Of Planets, it almost sounds like chicken feed.

This reminds me of a time many years ago when, due to some adversity called "life," I found myself living in a house I couldn't afford. My solution was to move to a cheaper place I could afford, but that was prior to the new Obamequality. If only I'd known. I could have gone to my neighbor and forced him to pay my mortgage. Alas, I didn't feel entitled to do that. At the time, I had some apparently misguided ideas about being responsible for my own decisions. I know now that my parents and teachers must have been pulling my leg when they taught me such failed ideas from the past.

Vive le stinking revolucion.

President Obama signed the SCHIP expansion into law yesterday amid great Democratic fanfare. As Democrats like to do, Obama pointed out a family that would benefit by his wonderful legislation (this time it was the Secrest family). Unmentioned, of course, were the hundreds of thousands of families to be hurt by the tax increase which pays for the SCHIP expansion. I've written before about how Obama is paying for SCHIP with a 61 cent tax on cigarettes, which studies show falls mainly on the poor, who smoke at much higher rates than more wealthy people do. I don't want to rehash all that again, but Obama made some comments during yesterday's SCHIP victory speech that I can't let pass:

But, as I think everybody here will agree, this is only the first step. Because the way I see it, providing coverage to 11 million children through CHIP is a down payment on my commitment to cover every single American…We'll have made the single largest investment in prevention and wellness in history, attacking problems like smoking and obesity, and helping people live longer, healthier lives.

I've heard politicians make stupid statements before, lots of them, but I want to nominate this one for the stupidity hall of fame. In the same speech that Obama is celebrating an SCHIP expansion funded by cigarette smokers, he says he wants to eliminate the problem of smoking…..which would eliminate the funding for his SCHIP expansion. Duh. In fact, SCHIP funding depends on the creation of 24 million NEW smokers.

Obama seamlessly morphed his "for the children" plea into a reason we should fork over $1 trillion+ for his pork-filled stimulus bill. He's promoting the dubious proposition that we can "help" our children by deficit spending ourselves into oblivion, which will saddle our children with mountains of debt and certainly lower their future living standards. This is precisely what Ronald Reagan warned about when he said the scariest words in the english language were, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

Our post-partisan president also took a shot at Republicans who oppose The One's spend-a-palooza:

Now, let me say this. In the past few days, I've heard criticisms of this plan that, frankly, echo the very same failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis in the first place, the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems, that we can address this enormous crisis with half-steps, and piecemeal measures, and tinkering around the edges, that we can ignore fundamental challenges like the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

Yeah, those rotten tax-cutting Republicans. How can those GOP wingnuts possibly think that giving people more of their own money back through tax cuts will help them…to….have…..more….money ? That's just crazy talk. Divisive. As for those "same failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis in the first place," why does Obama think it was 10% tax cuts that did it ? Why doesn't Obama recognize the 50% increase in GOVERNMENT SPENDING during the Bush years as a contributing factor ??? How about the fact that government spending has doubled in the last decade ? Why doesn't Obama recognize that failed policy ? It couldn't be because Obama wants to DOUBLE OR TRIPLE that spending increase, could it ? What a bunch of malarkey our president is trying to push on us. He's trying to pass the largest government spending bill in history off as a "stimulus package", and then condemns the GOP for wanting to restrict the bill to things that actually might have a chance to stimulate the economy. I'm also pretty sure the GOP isn't strenuously objecting to the infrastructure projects either. Mr. Post-partisan forgot to mention that too.

Finally, the president pushed his electoral mandate:

"I reject these [GOP] theories. And, by the way, so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change."

Now, I don't want to be a stickler or anything, and as mesmerized as I am by that word 'change,' I don't recall Obama campaining on the idea that he was going to pass a $1 trillion spending bill right after he was elected, do you ??? I don't remember him saying he was going to raise the cigarette tax by 61 cents per pack either. Such things might have influenced the outcome of the election. If only Obama had been more "transparent" about the policies he intended to pursue. What I remember Obama saying is "tax cuts for 95% of Americans" over and over, just like those failed Republicans are doing. What I remember is Obama saying he'd make health care more affordable. Now, objecting to his tax increases and massive spending increases is a "failed theory." No, Mr. President, what you are promoting is the failed theory, the one that says we can continue to live beyond our means. It's the same big government theory we've been operating on all along, except now you want to put it on even more powerful steroids, to make it a super-failed theory. No thank you.

And the polls are showing Americans don't want the stimulus bill passed in it's current pork-packed form. By all means, Mr. President, listen to the people.

President Obama said the SCHIP expansion was "only the first step."

That's precisely what I'm afraid of.

President-elect Barack Obama introduced his economic plan during a short speech yesterday.

Well, not really. What Obama actually introduced was the NAME of the plan, and some broad principles. He provided little in the way of details on what the plan will entail. The plan will be called either the American Recovery And Reinvestment Plan, or the Economic Recovery And Reinvestment Plan. Obama referred to it by both names during his news conference. Either way, it's an impressive sounding name for a plan. I bet the New York Times endorses it already.

We do know a few things about the plan, however. Here's a biggie:

"Just today, the Congressional Budget Office announced that the deficit we are inheriting for this budget year will be $1.2 trillion. And we know that our Recovery and Reinvestment plan will necessarily add more. My own economic and budget team projects that, unless we take decisive action, even after our economy pulls out of its slide, trillion dollar deficits will be a reality for years to come."

I'd like to tell you I understand what Obama is saying here, but I really don't. It sounds to me like he's saying that unless he spends tons of taxpayer dollars, adding tons more to the deficit, then we will have larger deficits. If there's any logic there, it is well hidden. I don't know how you reduce the deficit by adding to it. I'm encumbered by mathematics, where 1+1=2. Obama is saying 1+1=0, but he went to Harvard, so he must be right.

I also got a kick out of Obama saying "we are inheriting" a $1.2 trillion deficit, as if both he and the Democrats haven't voted for every bailout, every stimulus package, and pushed for ever larger federal budgets, and as if he and the Dems didn't help inflate the housing bubble every step of the way until it popped. I guess history resets on the day our new prez takes office. Nothing that happened before is the responsibility of his party or himself. I'll say this: If Obama runs trillion dollar deficits for 4 straight years, Republican prospects for a return to power are going to look very, very good in 2012.

Obama made a pledge to reduce government waste:

"We committed to change the way our government in Washington does business so that we’re no longer squandering billions of tax dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of the power of a lobbyist or interest group. We can no longer afford to sustain the old ways when we know there are new and more efficient ways of getting the job done. Even in good times, Washington can’t afford to continue these bad practices. In bad times, it’s absolutely imperative that Washington stop them and restore confidence that our government is on the side of taxpayers and everyday Americans."

In spite of the fact that this statement is completely non-specific (like all of them), I'm totally on board with the general concept. The federal government is the most wasteful institution on the planet. If Obama is serious about cutting government programs, he's going to have quite a battle with Congress on his hands, and he will be battling mostly with his own Democratic party. The big government types don't give their programs back without a lot of gnashing and wailing. Should be interesting. I wish Obama luck, provided his idea of useless programs doesn't consist solely of Republican initiatives.

Obama will begin his mission to shrink government by expanding government. He will create a new position, Chief Performance Officer, which will be headed by another former Clintonian, efficiency expert Nancy Killefer. Obama said he knew Killefer was the right person for the job when she told him, "If you’re willing to embrace significant change, then you’re looking at the right person. But if you just want to keep the trains running on time, don’t ask me to do this job.” 

Hmmm. I wonder where Killefer ever got the idea that Obama would respond favorably to the word "change" ? Must be kismet.

Obama says his economic plan will "save or create three million jobs." I can't help but notice that Obama added the word "save" to his jobs projection after he was elected. On the campaign trail, he was just going to CREATE millions of news jobs. Now he can claim victory if he just breaks even in the jobs area. Come to think of it, given the way we're hemorrhaging jobs now, that almost would be a victory. Expectations have been diminished.

Obama pledged to reform the huge entitlement problem we have with Social Security and Medicare. Again, no details were forthcoming, but bravo to the general principle, provided Obama's "reform" isn't limited to vast economy-killing tax increases.

Our president-elect sure has his work cut out for him. I wish him luck.

If any of you read my last post, called A Deficit Disorder, you probably know my feelings regarding our federal government's economic policies range somewhere between cynical and disgusted. Lately, with mob boss Hugo Chavez Hank Paulson running the Treasury like Don Corleone, making the big banks an offer they can't refuse to force a partial nationalization of those institutions, "disgusted" might not be a strong enough term. Paulson even told Wells Fargo Bank, who didn't want to be nationalized, that if they didn't accept his offer, they should (cue Marlon Brando's Don Vito voice) "never seek my favors or protections again." I'm paraphrasing, of course, but Paulson really did say words to that effect. Heaven help us. That's what happens when you give the feds so much power.

So, I almost passed on watching the third presidential debate last night. However, I was interested to see if John McCain would go down fighting or go down easy, so I tuned in. I was glad I did. While the talking heads, with their sound-byte mentalities, were saying things like "McCain didn't score the knockout he needed", or that Barack Obama "didn't make a major gaffe" after the debate, I saw things much differently. I thought John McCain cleaned Obama's clock on almost every issue. As an economic Conservative and an economic Libertarian, I finally heard from McCain some of what I've been hoping to hear. I finally heard McCain outline some fiscal policies to balance the budget and reign in Fedzilla (as Ted Nugent calls it), and I finally heard McCain expose Obama for the wrong-headed, wealth redistributing, big government tax and spend liberal that he is. I only wish McCain had mentioned some of the fascist policies of the other two heads of the liberal triumvirate of terror who would control our government if Obama gets elected and the Democrats increase their control of Congress – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who would attempt to do things like eliminate the secret ballot in union voting (you VILL join ze union, comrade !) with the Orwellian-named Employee Free Choice Act, and squelch free speech on talk radio (which mostly happens to be Conservative free speech) by imposing the equally Orwellian-named Fairness Doctrine. Ah, how I love the smell of our basic democratic principles burning in the morning.

McCain and Obama spent much time talking to Joe the plumber, who, after 15 years of working hard at his job, was finally in a position to own his plumbing business, and was concerned that Obama's tax plans would steal his hard-earned success and limit his ability to expand his business. (you really need to watch the entire video of Obama and Joe talking here). Obama's answer really does amount to stealing Joe's success, squelching Joe's American dream, and Obama taking the fruits of Joe's labor and "spreading the wealth around" to others. It's classic big government liberal-speak. In contrast, McCain showed how his tax cuts for business and low capital gains tax rates would enable Joe to grow his business, allowing Joe to hire people and create jobs. Obama's answer to Joe is the perfect example of how big government high-tax policies work against wealth creation and economic expansion. Instead of penalizing Joe for his success, the government should get the hell out of the way of people like Joe and let them do their thing. That is what would benefit society. McCain also rightly pointed out that Joe the plumber is not rich, though he would be under Obama's entitlement mindset. When Obama talks about tax "fairness", there really is nothing at all fair about it. Joe the plumber mentioned the flat tax during his conversation with Obama. The flat tax would be fair, but to Obama, those "rich" folks like Joe, who pay 35% income tax rates, aren't being taxed enough, whereas the non-rich, who often pay little to no income taxes, deserve even more money from the government. Once again, the word "fairness" takes on an Orwellian meaning in liberaldom (some animals are more equal than others).

McCain also pointed out that the last president wrong-headed enough to increase federal spending and raise taxes during a severe recession like this one was Herbert Hoover. Hoover's policies are widely seen as leading to the 1929 Great Depression. Are we about to allow history to repeat itself by electing Obama ? McCain noted that we shouldn't be raising ANYONE'S taxes during these harsh economic times. Amen, brother. We should be cutting back on government spending and stimulating the economy instead, as McCain said he plans to do, with both a hatchet AND a scalpel, and the veto pen too. Aww, Johnny, you had me at "freeze government spending."

McCain's plans are responsible, at least relative to Obama's. Obama's plans are nuts, unless our desire is to create a socialist country. I know I don't want that. I hope you don't either. Our founders sure didn't, which is why we have that wonderful document called the Constitution. It's too bad that very few are paying any attention to it these days, and that goes for both sides of the political aisle, including both Barack Obama and Hank Paulson. I couldn't find where Paulson is allowed to forcibly nationalize privately owned banks anywhere in the Constitution, but I guess I just don't get the notion of the "living" and "evolving" Constitution (Damn right I don't).

McCain mentioned several times that Obama's answer to absolutely everything is more government spending, more government control, and more government, period. Obama would take our already overblown federal government and put it on even stronger steroids. That is exactly the wrong answer – wrong for liberty, wrong for fairness, and wrong for America. Taxes, while necessary, should always be kept as low as possible. We have an annual time known as Tax Freedom Day, which is when the average American has paid off his government tax burden. It varies from state to state, but now falls around the end of April. After the financial crisis is cleaned up, and counting all our unfunded liabilities and national debt, who knows, it might fall at the end of June, July, or even August. When the average American is working 4-6 months of the year just for the government, what is that, but forced labor ? And what is forced labor, but slavery ? Do we want to keep EXPANDING that ? Hell no. America isn't a government chain gang. That cannot possibly be good for any of us in the long run. Each and every one of us has a civic duty to keep America free, to keep taxes low, and to limit our Fedzilla, to keep the American dream alive. And if the citizenry can't see that now, with all that is currently going on in our country, then we are certainly doomed.

You can find a transcript of the third presidential debate here. McCain took it to Obama, finally, though I wish McCain had been even more forceful in making his case. In boxing parlance, McCain too often jabs and jabs, and then inexplicably backs off from throwing the overhand right that he just set Obama up for. Too bad, because I don't think Obama could hear the rest of us Conservatives delivering those overhand rights by yelling at the tv sets in our living rooms.

Here's Barack Obama being interviewed by Bill O'Reilly on FoxNews. They are discussing taxation.

O'REILLY: But you want 50 percent [in taxes] of my success.
OBAMA: No, I don't. No, I don't.

Yes, he does. Yes, he does.
Obama would raise the top marginal tax rate to 39%, where it was prior to the Bush tax cuts. He would also lift the Social Security payroll tax cap, adding another 15.1% tax to those making over roughly $100,000. If you add it up, 39% + 15.1% = 54.1%. That is how much Barack Obama wants to take directly out of O'Reilly's success, and that isn't even counting the jump from 15% to 20% in the capital gains tax rate that Obama wants to institute.

O'REILLY: And then you want to raise corporate taxes.
OBAMA: No, I don't. That's not true.

Yes, he does. That is true.
Obama wants to start a windfall profits tax on the oil companies. Obama wants to close tax loopholes for business. Half of that increase in the aforementioned Social Security payroll tax is paid by the employer. For his health care plan, Obama wants to force business to either pay for all of a worker's health insurance, or pay a penalty tax to the government so the government can provide it (this is the gateway to the nationalized health insurance Obama really wants, as most companies will choose to rid themselves of the headache of dealing with health insurance and pawn it off to the government by choosing to pay the penalty tax). Obama would give small business a 50% health care tax credit, though to my knowledge, "small business" is not defined.

OBAMA: Well, but the problem is, if I am sitting pretty, and you've got a waitress who is making minimum wage plus tips, and I can afford it if she can't, what's the big deal for me to say I'm going to pay a little bit more?
O'REILLY: Because it inhibits…
OBAMA: That is neighborliness.
O'REILLY: Listen, if you raise the cap gains tax, that's going to inhibit investment. I won't buy as many stocks. And many, many, more people won't, OK, that's…
OBAMA: If we went up…
O'REILLY: It's going to come back to bite you, senator.
OBAMA: If we went up to a prohibitive rate, you're right. But…

"Neighborliness" ??? Now, I'm all for being neighborly. I let my neighbor borrow my lawnmower and my tools, but I'll be damned if I'm going to give Joe half my income. That's taking things entirely too far. Plus, I have a newsflash for Mr. Obama. It isn't only the rich who are paying half their income in taxes. It's us middle class folks as well. If I'm earning $60,000 per year, I pay about 20% federal taxes, 15.1% payroll taxes, 5% state taxes, 2.5% local taxes. That's 42.6% right there, and that doesn't take into account sales taxes, property taxes, and the hidden taxes that are included in the retail price of every product that I purchase. I call that prohibitive taxation, even if Mr. Obama doesn't.

Where does it end ? When do the taxpayers rise up and say 'enough is enough' ? The problem isn't that the taxpayers aren't paying enough. That hasn't been the case for decades and decades. The problem isn't that the government doesn't have enough revenue coming in. The federal budget alone is about $3 TRILLION, for chrissakes. Yet, we still have continual deficits. We have a $10 trillion federal debt. We have $50 trillion in unfunded entitlement liabilities. Our geniuses in Washington D.C. just put us on the hook for $5 trillion more by bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. $200 billion of those loans are known to be bad. Our geniuses in D.C. bailed out Bear Stearns, putting the taxpayers at more risk. Then the geniuses in D.C. give us a stimulus package and pretend like they are helping us out. Well, guess what ? That wasn't paid for either. Guess who gets to pay for it ?? WE DO ! Now, they are talking about a second stimulus package, and that one won't be paid for either. Deeper and deeper we go into the hole, and here we have Barack the Changeman pretending that he's somehow different, when all he is going to do is what they all do, vastly increase taxes and spending more and more, which is the very thing that got us into this mess to begin with. Obama has no plans to balance the budget, by his own words. In fact, he doesn't even talk about that. What he talks endlessly about is investing (spending) in this, and investing in that. ENOUGH.

Obama represents change like a guy who has maxed out his credit cards represents change by getting more credit cards. ENOUGH.

No more new government spending until we solve the massive problems we face with all the previous government spending. To do anything else isn't change, it's insanity.

The political Left has two basic positions regarding business in America.

1) If a company is making a profit, they characterize the company as evil, and demand that their profits be taken away, so the government can use the money instead (this is known as THEFT in the non-socialist world, but you aren't supposed to think about that). It goes without saying that the bigger a company's profits grow, the MORE evil that company becomes. This means that Exxon-Mobil is the DEVIL INCARNATE.

2) If a company stops making a profit and loses money, the Left will subsidize the company (the Right tends to join in on this part too – Let's privatize profits, socialize losses, and join me on my yacht this weekend, old chum. Life is good).

The above is a twist on Reagan's old joke about government power: If it moves, tax it; if it keeps moving, regulate it; And when it stops moving, subsidize it.

A good example of #1 is Barack Obama traveling around the country telling everyone he wants to take the profits away from those evil oil companies (who, btw, enable our economy and society to function at a post-19th century level that keeps us off horseback and stagecoaches, but you aren't supposed to think about that. Just keep repeating to yourself – 'Oil Is Evil, Oil Is Evil', like Nancy Pelosi (D-Venus) and Harry Reid (D-Mars) do. It's easier than thinking about things.

A good example of #2 is the taxpayer bailout of the mortgage mess, which included bailing out faltering companies like Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Those are private companies, aren't they ? Sure they are. Sort of. But talk about connected. They're practically a branch of government.

As far as I can tell, the following industries comprise the liberal Axis Of Evil Corporations: Oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, and insurance companies. I provide this list as a public service, so you lay persons out there can know who you should hate. Financial companies used to be on the Axis of Evil list too, but they lost so much money recently that they are no longer evil. Now, they must be subsidized.

The mantra the Left uses to demonize profit goes like this: How dare those greedy so-and-so's at the (fill-in-the-blank) corporation make so much money, when that money could be used for a) a government program, or b) the children ? 'The children' is practically foolproof as an excuse for the government to steal money from the private sector. An autocrat can justify anything if it's 'for the children' You aren't supposed to think about the fact that business profits enable people to have jobs, get paid, and become prosperous. You aren't supposed to realize business profits are the reason you live in a house, have an automobile, a refrigerator, a stove, a television, a phone, electricity, heat, and food. You aren't supposed to realize those business profits earned in a free market made the United States the world's leading superpower. Again, thinking is your enemy. Just keep saying to yourself, 'Profit Is Evil, Profit Is Evil', like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama (D-Cuba) do – and Karl Marx did.

Our Glorious Exalted Leader Obama has even taken it a step further. He has proposed a windfall profits tax on the Devil Who Is Called Exxon and the other oily devils, and wants to hand $1,000 of the Devil's profits directly to each American, so Obama can literally buy your vote, er, help you combat the high costs of energy this winter, costs that Obama and friends won't do anything to help lower for maybe 20 years, and only then if the requisite alternative energy miracle happens in the meantime (except for that nifty 'inflate your tires' tip. That was quite helpful. Thanks, BO. If you were running for gas station attendant, you'd definitely get my vote).

The Left hates profit because America isn't perfect. There are still problems here, unlike all those other utopian socialist paradises, like, um, well, uh……….er, never mind. There must be some somewhere. I just can't think of their names right now. Even though we spend nearly $2 trillion each year on some type of entitlement program, the Left reasons that just isn't enough. Not even close to enough. Ever more and more and more money must be spent by the federal government, and ever more and more and more of your money must be stolen through taxation. Then someday, when NOBODY has any money left and the government is our supreme overlord and master of all things, that perfect socialist utopian nirvana will be achieved. I think it says exactly that on Obama's website, because his answer to absolutely everything is for big government to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on it. I guess that's easier than thinking too.

Color me skeptical. It seems like $2 trillion per year should be plenty enough to keep people out of poverty, to keep them from starving. Yet somehow, it isn't. Could the problem be the government itself ? Nah, that can't be it. Impossible ! It must be the Republicans fault. Dick Cheney must be taking that money and giving it to Halliburton or something. It's a conspiracy of some sort. I know it, even though I have no proof whatsoever. I mean, c'mon, that Cheney guy just LOOKS evil. He's all old and corporate and white and stuff. Who needs proof ? And Cheney shot his buddy on that hunting trip. Don't forget that. What more is there to know ?

An old and very wise saying about democracy goes like this:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal responsibility, always followed by a dictatorship.” – John Tyler

That was written in 1770, but it sounds pretty relevant to what's going on today.

Think of that when Barack Obama vows to steal someone else's money to give it to you, or to tax the hell out of the rich as if that won't affect you. It certainly will. We are just finishing with one president who didn't care much about fiscal responsibility, Dubya. Dubya was irresponsible on the spending side. Why on earth would we elect another president of "loose fiscal responsibility", but this time, on BOTH the taxation and spending sides ? $3 TRILLION per year should be plenty enough to run the federal government. Far more than enough, in truth. The tax and spend buck must stop here, or we will suffer serious consequences, the very ones John Tyler warned about back in 1770. Barack Obama wants to declare war on profits. I want to declare war on Barack Obama and all of his socialist/communist/totalitarian ilk, before it's too late.

Major kudos to USA Today. An American newspaper has finally told the truth about the real economic crisis facing our country, which is the growth of entitlements, mainly with Medicare and that Ponzi scheme hidden income tax ripoff fake trust fund brought to you by the Democratic Party, Social Security (SS). Read the USA today article here.

As a side note about SS, Barack Obama took to using a little "politics of fear" (if I may borrow an Obaman rhetorical device) to falsely scare senior citizens into thinking John McCain was going to take away their SS. (link) Real classsy move from Obama the "new kind of post-partisan politician" (guffaw). Nobody has EVER suggested taking SS away from seniors. Nobody. Certainly not John McCain. To paraphrase some more Obama-style patter – Barack Obama's appalling attacks are the type of divisive, dishonest, and hypocritical partisan rhetoric that has characterized politics for far too long. It's the politics of the past, and the American people are tired of it. Americans want real change they can believe in, not more fearmongering, not more of the same old down and dirty intransigent politics so typical of the Washington D.C. inside power players – There. How did you like my Obama impersonation ? You know, it's really easy to talk like that. I think I'll form an exploratory committee to make a run for the Senate, Libertarian Party, I guess. The GOP has ticked me off, so they're out. They had their chance, and the Democrats are just flat out wrong about almost everything, so they'd be far worse. Thinking the Republican mess will be fixed by the Democrats is like thinking you can set your hair on fire and then put it out with gasoline.

Which leads me back to my intended subject. The entitlement liability, which constitutes the REAL federal deficit. It's over $500,000 PER HOUSEHOLD right now. Forget the credit crisis. Forget the mortgage crisis. Forget the Iraq war. This is the REAL crisis. I don't know about you, but $500,000 sounds like a chunk of change to me. Before long, we could be talking about real money. And every year we don't get a handle on this problem, the problem grows by a couple TRILLION dollars. If you want the "politics of fear", well, here's something to fear:

Taxpayers are on the hook for a record $57.3 trillion in federal liabilities to cover the lifetime benefits of everyone eligible for Medicare, Social Security and other government programs, a USA TODAY analysis found. That's nearly $500,000 per household.

When obligations of state and local governments are added, the total rises to $61.7 trillion, or $531,472 per household. That is more than four times what Americans owe in personal debt such as mortgages.

The $2.5 trillion in federal liabilities dwarfs the $162 billion the government officially announced as last year's deficit, down from $248 billion a year earlier.

"We're running deficits in the trillions of dollars, not the hundreds of billions of dollars we're being told," says Sheila Weinberg, chief executive of the Institute for Truth in Accounting of Chicago.

The Medicare liability alone increased by $1.2 trillion in 2007, but it doesn't appear in our deficit numbers anywhere. We still have to pay for it. The total Medicare UNFUNDED liability is $30.4 trillion.

Now let's talk about some politics we really should fear (if you aren't scared already). Suppose Barack Obama becomes president and the Democrats seize a larger Congressional majority in november. Both are likely possibilities. That would give the Dems almost unfettered power. The Dems would immediately start implementing BRAND NEW HUGE ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS to add to the enormous entitlement debt tsunami headed our way already. Massive increases in taxes would have to follow, which is another really bad idea when our economy is already slowing and shaky. Add it all together, and the Democrats will create an environment for the PERFECT ECONOMIC STORM (all to help us, of course). Imagine what each American household will be on the hook for then.

You want the truth ? There's the truth. Our politicians can't handle the truth, which is why they hide behind distortions and outright lies. I'm willing to bet you haven't heard any of these numbers being talked about during the presidential campaign (which has been going on for over a year), and I guaran-darn-tee you haven't heard a Democrat mention them probably ever in your lifetime.

I BEG ALL YOU VOTERS TO PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THIS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. IT IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT FOR THE REASONS I JUST MENTIONED. THE OUTCOME COULD SWAMP THE FINANCIAL VIABILITY OF YOUR CHILDREN FOR TWO DECADES OR MORE.

So liberals, since you are actually in favor of all these entitlements that will bankrupt the country, I beg you to exhibit a little of that alleged liberal compassion and send at least $531,000 to me, Da King. I'm one of those little guys you love to "help". Thank you very much. I knew I could count on you. God bless, er, I mean, dos vedanya.

My fellow americans,

I have a dream, a dream of a shining city on a hill, where the buffalo roam, and seldom is heard a discouraging word. For now the skies ARE cloudy all day, my friends. As Dr. King said, "The thrill is gone, the thrill is gone away from me". We are not thrilled with the status quo. We are not thrilled when we have to work five days a week while pampered movie stars have lots of money, big mansions, and ride around in limousines. I ask you, is this justice ? Is it justice when Rosita, an undocumented worker, has to clean multi-millionaire Barbra Streisand's house for a few hundred dollars a week ? That is not justice. That is not america. No justice, no peace. I will take Mrs. Streisand's profits away and give them to Rosita who deserves them. Let Mrs. Streisand clean her own toilets, and let Rosita ride in the limousine. Yes we can !

If you have ever thought there was anything wrong in the world ever in your entire life, then I am your candidate, because I too have thought there were things wrong in the world. I am just like you. I bring not only change, but real change, and not only real change, I bring REALLY real change, that you can believe in with all your heart, from here to eternity, forever and ever, amen. I am courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. I have been to the moutaintop, I have seen other people's money, and I'm going to take it from them and give it to YOU, all my children. You who deserve that money so much. All you have to do is vote for me, and I will set you free. No longer will you have to work like a slave for things like food, shelter, clothing, and video games, for I will give them to you for free, because you deserve it. Yes we can !

No longer will you have to worry about how you will pay your car insurance or be held hostage by the cable television company, because I will make sure that every citizen in this country has his or her car insurance and cable tv bills take care of. Why should some rich man like Brad Pitt get 250 television channels when Jenny Pratt, a 25 year old waitress from Youngstown, Ohio, with three children and no baby daddy, only gets channels 2-14 ? Is that justice ? The bureacrats in Washington, D.C. say yes, but I say NO. Is it justice when your next door neighbor has three cars while you have only one ? I say NO. As president, I will take that car from him and give it to you, my friend. You who deserve it. No longer will we endure the tyranny of our neighbors having more than we do. No longer will we have to keep up with the Joneses. When I am president, we will ALL be the Joneses. Some say these things could not be done. Some say these things would not be done. Some say these things should not be done. Some say I'm as dumb as a bag of hammers, but I say, yes we can ! Yes we can ! Keep hope alive ! We will, we will rock you ! We will, we will rock you !

Now, some of the naysayers look at my campaign of ecstasy and utopia for all mankind and they say "King has no experience," or, "King's proposals aren't practical," or "King is insane in the membrane". These nattering nabobs of negativity don't want me to give your neighbor's car to you. They don't want me to give you free tv and millions of dollars you didn't earn. They don't want me to give you Nintendo Wii or force Domino's to deliver free pizzas to you door upon request. And why ? I'll tell you why, my children. It's because they are GREEDY, that's why ! They want all those Domino's pizzas for themselves, and they want YOU TO PAY FOR YOUR OWN PIZZA. That's fascism, my friends, plain and simple, and my campaign is about freedom. As president, I will be free to give you anything you want, and I will give you everything your heart ever desired ! Yes we can !

Other naysayers claim "King has no substance on the issues", and that's a debate I'm happy to have. Let me dispatch that notion right now, by proposing substantive solutions to some of this nation's other problems. In my first week in office, I will – end the war, stop trade to end the trade deficit, outlaw corporations (only the big, evil ones), give you all money so you don't need jobs, make school optional and free, erase all american borders, and make health care free. There, problems solved. Did I miss anything ? If I did, just drop me a line, and I'll take care of it in 10 words or less. Thank you for your support.

Yes we can !

When I heard that the Comptroller General and head of the Government Accounting Office (GAO), David Walker, has resigned, I had to write about it. Walker was one of my favorite guys in government, probably due to the fact that he's not a politician. He was the chief accountant for the federal government. He's beholden to no political party. Walker was appointed by Bill Clinton in 1998, and continued serving through the Bush administration until now.

Because David Walker is not a politician, he doesn't engage in political spin. Instead, he has the refreshing habit of telling the plain, unvarnished truth. You can hear him tell some of the truth on Glenn Beck's show here. Please watch the video before you read the rest of this column.

The unspun truth about the state of the federal government's finances is pretty disturbing, and paints a pretty grim picture of america's future, which is why politicians like to cover it up. The politicians who cover it up the most are those politicians who intend to pursue the same irresponsible fiscal policies that led us this far off the rails. You can tell these politicians by their lingo. They tell you they want to raise taxes and increase government spending dramatically, although they use code words to disguise those facts. For instance, they'll talk about "investing" in this or that government program. They think you are too stupid to realize that means raising taxes and increasing government spending. If you elect these politicians, you prove them right. You ARE too stupid. When the government gives you "free stuff", it isn't free at all. YOU pay for it.

What David Walker knows is that unrestrained government spending and the expansion of entitlements is going to bankrupt this country. That is the bottom line, and that is what the pro-big government pols don't want you to know. This is an enormous issue, and we have two presidential candidates in the Democratic party who not only don't want to acknowledge it, they want to ADD MULTIPLE NEW ENORMOUS ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS TO THE ALREADY STAGGERING COMING ENTITLEMENT TSUNAMI. Our financial house is on fire and they want to throw more wood on the blaze. This is irresponsibility on an unprecedented level (okay, maybe not unprecedented. Bush's liberal spending spree threw wood on that fire too). I'm not sure if the Republican presidential candidate understands the enormity of the fire either, but at least he's not chopping up more kindling to throw on.

As David Walker points out, every year we don't act drives us $2-3 trillion deeper in the hole, which already stands at $56 trillion. Do you see any politicians talking about it ? Facing it ? Or do you see politicians promising people the moon instead ? That type of feel-good politics does every one of us a disservice, but the disservice it does to us is nothing compared to what it will do to our children. These chuckleheaded pols actually call you selfish if you resist all this entitlement expansion, and they have over half the country brainwashed into thinking the same way. That takes some real chutzpah, because what is truly selfish is burdening future generations with the tab for OUR spendthrift ways. We want to ride the gravy train and let our sons and daughters pay for it. What could be more selfish than that ?

Reuter's reports that David Walker has resigned to head up the newly formed Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Walker said, "As Comptroller General of the United States and head of the GAO, there are real limitations on what I can do and say in connection with key public policy issues, especially issues that directly relate to GAO's client — the Congress. My new position will provide me with the ability and resources to more aggressively address a range of current and emerging challenges facing our country."

I look forward to hearing from him. Somebody in this country has to start dealing with reality, unless we are ready to forfeit the american dream and all start wearing Che t-shirts instead. I'm not even close to ready for that. How about you ?