Let not our children and grandchildren tomorrow have to pay the price for our ignorance today. Major reform in all branches of government is in order.

and what about insane military spending, bridges to nowhere, and mass tax cuts for the rich?

no, it's always framed such that programs that benefit the majority have to be cut, but never touch the things that benefit the ultra rich. Somehow, every other country on the planet pays less for heath care, and a very large number of them have much better health. Maybe if the Govt. wasn't in the pocket of the heath industry, we wouldn't all suffer for the exorbitant profits of a few executives.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Quality comment Sometimes, I couldn't agree more.

(Watched Sicko yesterday)

Got to agree there as well. From what I understand we spend about as much on defense as the rest of the world *combined*, but the only place we can think to cut spending is in services for the welfare of the people rather than military contractors? Something does seem out of wack there. If we've got that many enemies we need to adjust our policies some, if we don't have that many we don't need that much.

There's no doubt we're in some deep financial trouble though, we've got to cut something. Health care needs a total rebuild, too many middlemen in the process who want a cut of the profits but produce and offer nothing in themselves. The only way they can support themselves is to deprive the clients, goal seems to be to reduce costs by denying claims rather than to find a better way to serve the client.

I remember hearing the same gloom and doom story 20 years ago and it didn't wash then either. If socialized medicine is so good, like they have in Canada, why do canadians come to America for medical care? The answer is simple and yet totally denied by the pro socialist crowd. Socialized medicine equals long waiting lists for all procedures. The more expensive it is the longer the wait. If you happen to be retired and no longer paying the higher taxes they all enjoy then your wait can, and often is, terminal. Oh, and by the way, the leaders of all these "enlightened" countries that practice this type of medical care have their own private medical care. The largest single expense in the American medical system is malpractice insurance, caused by ridiculous settlements handed down to greedy people for an honest mistake.

Much of our fiscal spending needs reform. We should start with our grossly over-funded "military industrial complex".

A good example is this spiel by Ben Cohen http://www.videosift.com/video/US-Defense-Budget-Explained-with-OREO-Cookies-Flash-ver

reason -- the issue is fairly simple -- baby boomers make up 20% of the population. Since social security is not paid for by investments, as that 20% move into retirement, the burden of supporting them falls on the current work-force.

I notice the military is always the target. What about all the pork? Sometimes mentioned the bridge to nowhere, this is a fine example of our elected officials lining the pockets of their friends. A good place to start would be flushing the criminals out of the house and senate. The double standard for the politicians needs to be abolished. And of course tax cuts will favor the rich, they pay more taxes than the poor.

the whole argument that health care costs are outrageous because of medical malpractice is a fallacy: http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/insurance/medicalmal/
I do believe most doctors can handle paying $15K a year (or less) for insurance. Sure seems like alot until you figure how much doctors make.

THe reason health care costs so much is because of uninsured and underinsured people having to default on their bills. When they do that, the cost is moved along to anyone else who CAN pay or has insurance. That's simple business economics and any health care institute that is profit-based (most are) will work that way. UNtil everyone in the US is insured, health care will continue to skyrocket.

oh and you might note that while DOCTORS are reasonably priced ($30-100 per visit) it is hospitals and emergency care that are outrageous. Since it is doctors who get sued for malpractice and rarely hospitals, then that prety much negates the whole medical malpractice argument.

Apparently, some will pay any amount for health care and gasoline and the like, so long as we keep gay people from getting married, eh? But that's what's the matter with Kansas.

Read the Rolling Stone article "The Great Iraq Swindle: How Bush Allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors to Invade the U.S. Treasury".

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16076312/the_great_iraq_swindle/print

The recently updated Congressional Budget Outlook is a surprising readable document, and as someone who derives funding from governmental sources, I found it interesting:
http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/85xx/doc8565/08-23-Update07.pdf

Page 17 is highly related to this video.

... available right on the front page, of course, at http://cbo.gov/ , where they also have a nice 'Frequently Requested' hyperlink section.

I really enjoyed the video until I got to the end. Ron Paul for president? WTF? If you want to advertise for your candidate don't just steal an interesting news story and then tack on an endorsement claiming your man will fix all our problems.

Make your own campaign commercial that in some way explains his positions. It may not turn out as popular or interesting as a 60 minutes story, but it would be honest.

Hey U.S, How about spending less on illegally invading other nations and spending more on socialized health care!

Although many of us may not feel the military budget is justified, it cannot serve as a constant scapegoat for all our problems. This problem, in particular, has very little to do with military spending. At 4:04 it's clearly stated that even a total elimination of the military budget would not affect this problem.

I am need to look into this guy some more, but people like this often make linear assumptions about nonlinear systems.

At 4:04 it's clearly stated that even a total elimination of the military budget would not affect this problem.

Actually he didn't say that, the reporter trying to paraphrase whatever impressions he had reported that as what the guy said. Since he was just sitting there talking to us I'd rather have had it in context and in his own words myself. The Pentagon is such a huge part of our discretionary spending that it would have to have some impact.

I'd agree that it's no solution in itself, but there's still no reason that we should be spending as much on this crap as the rest of the world combined. Throw in a little waste here, a couple trillion missing from the Pentagon there, and soon we're talking real money Medical system in itself is a mess though and we could save a LOT just reforming that, or maybe cover everyone for the same price or less. We spend more per capita than other nations which have universal health care and still can't cover everyone while they do. The quality of care argument is sound enough for those with good care now, but it means nothing to those who have nothing today and that number is growing. For them things just improve.

Well considering how the reporting quotes Walker, as in "Walker says you could eliminate all waste and fraud and the entire Pentagon budget and the long-range financial projections barely change." Since this is 60 minutes, a well-respected news program, that could be sued or penalized for misquoting or misrepresenting a person, I'll take that at face value and not "out of context".

Oh, FYI, the US does not spend more than the rest of the world combined on it's military. Just the next 5 countries.

And the whole of the world outside of those countries amounts to how much spending? Not a lot. From what I just sourced that's not true anyway. The US spends, as I said above, about as much as the rest of the world. Not as much or more but about or nearly as much.

From globalissues.org

The 15 countries with the highest spending account for 84 per cent of the total;

The USA is responsible for 48 per cent of the world total, distantly followed by the UK, France, Japan and China with 4–5 per cent each.


http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp

Now I don't know where you get your numbers but mine didn't just get pulled out of a hat, I used the term because it fit. 48% of the world total is about as much as the rest combined as I stated, and even if they overstate it, which is possible, we're still the biggest spender with NO nation or organized group of them to challenge us. The biggest behind us are mostly on our side.

No, he clearly said that if we do nothing for 20 years and keep same level of inflation-adjusted benefits, the amount to pay out in interest on 20 years of borrowing to pay retirement benefits will be larger than the entire military budget.

Here's the real trick to this. We spend X trillions every year. We can only afford to maintain these Bush deficit spending by robbing the social security and medicare funds. See, the baby boomers for the most part already paid into the system approximately what they will take out. (Not really, but if it was wisely invested.. it would have grown to cover the population bubble)

What happens it that there is no money being invested. It's like your company 401k, but instead of investing it they spent it on R&D every year, and when people retire they just take it out of the corporate profits. Well eventually if the company stops growing, or everyone quits, there will be no money to put back into the 401k plans.

Literally, right now, your social security is being spent in Iraq. It's being spent on missle defense systems. It's being spent on predator drones. It's being spent on Enron and corporate welfare and federal pension guarantees.

Mostly, your retirement social security and medicare is being stolen from you everytime companies "restructure" and lay people off and collect tax write-offs to move jobs overseas. It's being stolen from you and paid into corporate stocks and investor programs. And guess what the solution is???
Raise retirement eligible age to 70, then 75, then 80. You will be working at Walmart until you die. Because otherwise you will be destitute, unless you have your own 401k that saved up enough.

Go read the history and the point of Social Security in the first place. We are going to have millions of impoverished homeless old people left to rot in state run (Halliburton contracts) institutions.

Buy stock in cat food companies!

Hey wingoguy, if you include Iraq, then yes, the US spent more money on military than the rest of the world combined. (It's all about separate buckets of money, discretionary funds, all nuke money is under DOE, pentagon get's lots of money from Congress through contracts that is essentially DOD money).

Here's wikipedia:

The current (2005) United States military budget is larger than the military budgets of the next fourteen biggest spenders combined, and over eight times larger than the official military budget of China. The United States and its close allies are responsible for approximately two-thirds of all military spending on Earth (of which, in turn, the US is responsible for the majority). Military spending accounts for more than half of the United States' federal discretionary spending, which is all of the U.S. government's money that is not used for pre-existing obligations.[5]

In case you're wondering, I downvoted for the bait-and-switch campaign ad.

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