Playing politics

This is going to be a rant blog entry. Espen is doing well and Amy is excited to be done with work for the year. They'll be taking a "Mom and me" swim class so that should be really fun. Not really any updates beyond that.

Politics are getting so far out of whack that it should be pretty apparent to most Americans with an average IQ or above there is little that politicians do that is anything but self-serving. People turned out in terrific numbers to declare marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman. People turned out in droves to show support for tightening the noose, so to speak, on illegal immigrants. People time and time again show an absolute desire to abolish the existing tax system. And what does the government do? Nothing, zip, and business as usual, respectively. In fact, the majority of the legislation that has come out has gone CONTRARY to what the people want. People voted to make amendments to ban gay marriage. Several states announced they would not only honor gay marriage but perform it. People voted to throw the book at people in this country illegally. The government started drafting an amnesty bill. People want an easy-to-understand tax system with a minimum of complexity. They government has added tens of thousands of pages to a flawed system, addressing none of the problems but adding headaches and burden to the average taxpayer who has to spend their time (and/or money) trying to straighten out their financial burden to the United States. Then to top that all off, a president comes to power promising lower deficits and all-but-eliminated porkbarrel spending, and adds the largest dollar amount of deficit spending in the history of the country. People badmouthed Bush's spending plan and how his budget was the worst ever in the red (which it was) and Obama has just introduced a spending bill that would QUADRUPLE the deficit spending of Bush's last year in office. Yes, that means the debt Bush racked up in 2008 is 1/4 the debt that Obama will be tacking on in 2009. Add on top of that the common knowledge that Social Security is hosed and Medicare is insolvant, yet neither are being worked on because the government wants to add "Universal Healthcare" for every American, legal or otherwise. Health care as is costs the government billions, and the government isn't in charge of squat. Universal Coverage sounds great until you look at the waiting lists (Canada is pointed out as a good example of socialized medicine... 60% of Canadians have to wait over a month to see a specialist), the actual feasibility of covering every single person in the country (France, which consistantly wins awards for excellence in "Universal" health care does not cover the lowest income portion of the population (about the bottom 8%) and studies show low income groups often have inordinately high numbers of medical bills), and the cost in taxes (Sweden is pointed to as an example of wonderful patient care... their lowest tax bracket is a little over 20% higher that the highest US tax bracket). Or you could point out the wonderful economies of some of the myriad countries that rely on socialized medicine, like Cuba and Russia. Why do politicians continue to push for plans and ideas that are failing (Social Security will be insolvant before Amy and I are 65 while Medicare will be absolutely penniless before Espen will be out of elementary school -- both of those figures according to the lastest research, released this last week)? Because it sounds good and sounding good gets you re-elected. Nevermind that the debt we add IN 2009 ALONE is greater than the amount of money the entire country of Italy will produce in the same year. The United States deficit, estimated to be $2.72 trillion dollars (that's $2,720,000,000,000), taken as it's own entity, would be the 6th largest gross domestic product in the world. Larger than the entire economy of Spain, or India, or Canada, or Britain, or Australia, or France. It's over 8,500 dollars debt per American THIS YEAR ALONE.

This blog post isn't an attack on any one person in the government, this is an informational post to let you know the depth of the hole (read: grave) the government is digging for us. Think about that the next time you hear someone running for office and promising something for nothing. Your "free" health care comes from my pocket. My "free" unemployment comes out of your paycheck. People complain about taxes now, but if they got all the government funded garbage that they claim they want, they best be prepared to pay three-quarters of their income to the government to fund it.

Today's useless fact: nearly half (44%) of all tax money collected in the US goes to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, yet they will all be bankrupt within the next 40 years.

Useless fact 2: the same people who are in charge of those three systems -- financially insolvant in less than 100 years after their inception -- would be in charge of running Universal Health Care in this country. Consider that.