http://blip.tv/play/Adb1EJDaNg

Hopefully some of you have seen this before.  I wonder if Obama has seen this.  It's a large file (109MB) so you'll want to make sure you have broadband of some kind.

So, now we are going to spend $1.2 Trillion more? When will it end? I sure don't hear the politicians raising hell about this.

Of course not. Pork buys approval.

I watched the 30 minute section of the movie.

The most startling thing in the movie is how the US got England and France to withdraw from the Suez Canal in the 1950s.  Since economic warfare worked on our own allies, imagine the affect this would have on us if China decided to sell off US Dollars.

The movie did not go far enough to show cutting government spending and how the decreasing amount of baby boomers collecting Social Security and Medicare will eventually decrease.  Also, cutting taxes puts more capitol to invest in the economic system to stimulate more growth.

As much as I hate to say it, perhaps it is time that there are admission requirements to Federal Parks and sites.  Some nominal fee might help.  Collect up $1-5 per person for Federal Parks.  This might help.  Cut out unnecessary spending.  It also appears that Social Security, Medicare etc. will probably have the services cut drastically.

At the same time that we can't continue on our current economic path, we shouldn't make the same mistake that Europe has been making in the last four to five decades.  They have massive government spending on social programs yet their standard of living is less than we have in the US. 

Another thing is that the cost of the Iraq war should be paid for by Iraq and the UN.  the UN passed fourteen or more resolutions but didn't enforce any of them.  It took the US to go in and enforce the resolutions that the UN passed.  Start taking some of Iraq's oil as payment for the war.

I don't have all the answers but I know that Obama's policy of increased taxation and increased spending on social problems is not the answer.

Jim

I've thought for years that perhaps consideration should be given to making Social Security means-tested.

People usually start screaming bloody murder when that's mentioned. "I paid in, so I should get it back."

Well, there are a lot of us who probably won't get back what we paid in, and we all know that there have been plenty of folks who drew out far more than they paid in, so there's no way it's going to be fair to everybody. And I've felt for years that I probably will never get back what I've paid in.

IIRC, it's called Supplemental Security Income, or some such thing, and the original idea was that Social Security was to supplement one's retirement, not to be one's retirement. So, if you have individuals who don't need the supplement, don't pay it out to them.

Of course, that has to be combined with making the whole thing voluntary on the front end, too. It needs to go bye-bye anyway. It was a bad idea to start with, that has gotten worse. (Along with Medicare, Medicaid, and a long list of other government programs).