Monday, March 17, 2008

Setting in a Mousetrap Pondering my Fate -- March 19th

by Jim Lohman
A man and a boy, and the price of their toy
There was a fellow on CNN last week by the name of David Walker who was some kind of economist or a flunky of some kind, you figure it out. He said in essence, "American cannot afford National Health Insurance because it will bankrupt the country." I looked again to see if I was watching CNN or the Comedy Channel. Folks, I have news for you. America is bankrupt and it was long bankrupt before either of the Bushs got their hands on the national treasury. We all know the fun of spending other peoples money. Fact is our country has been in serious debt since World War II and even I see that as being a good reason. Even I cannot argue the point it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt that got us into financial trouble. We ‘Baby Boomers’ inherited the debts of our parents and keep adding to them.
Mr. Walker reminds me of most men. "We can afford the toys but we cannot afford the food to feed our families." We can afford Iraq, outer space, foreign aid and every sort of pork barrel spending we can think of, but we cannot afford to take care of the sick in the country. As I believe we only see the needs in the third world areas of the world and have little sight for the suffering and poverty in America. Yes, folks we are bankrupt and now Mr. Bush is trying to save his reputation in the presidency by handing out money. I have a better idea, take the money you wasted in Iraq Mr. Bush and split that between us. To make it plain, don’t think I am not going straight to the bank and cash the check, I am not a crazy trouble maker, must a trouble maker, I am going to use the money to pay debts and if I were you my friends and neighbors, it would be the best thing for you to do the same thing.
Think on this for just a second. How much more money would you have if you didn’t have to pay taxes? Why do you pay taxes? Answer to question number one. If you didn’t pay taxes you’d have a lot more money. Number two: You pay taxes because you have to. How much of your tax money goes to pay the national debt. Ross Perot said in 1992 that, "every dollar collected in federal income tax, west of the Mississippi River; [where you and I live,] goes to pay the interest on the national debt." What could this country have if we did not have the national debt? What has really happened is, our parents spent our money. Now in order to have anything, we are spending our children’s money and we have done even a better job of it than our parents did to us, because we are a spoiled rotten generation. We bought toys, now we can’t afford food.
We spent much of it on toys and now we don’t have the money for what we need. As is said, "the only difference between a man and a boy is the price of his toy."
Why didn’t these people start spewing this garbage about bankruptcy fifty years ago? If they would have, there would not have been a race to the moon, the Russians would have gotten there and we would have gotten the same news, "it is not made of green cheese." We could afford the space program because we wanted to do it and as the axiom goes, if we want it we can afford it, if we don’t want it, we can’t afford it. Boy, have I heard that argument many times over the years from families. David Walker doesn’t want national health insurance. Why should he? He can obviously afford health insurance, he might even get it for free. I don’t get it for free, I pay for it; when I can get it. I don’t believe that national health insurance should be free, there should be a premium, but it should be affordable. In my way of thinking our health care system is one of the biggest arguments that democracy doesn’t work perfectly and you know the main reason we have such a problem is, simple greed. That doctors feel they have to make as much money as a pitcher in the big leagues. That is the main reason we need national health insurance in this country, medical greed and why we can afford it because, we need it. The alternative is to wipe out greed, Our country is bankrupt and I mean morally. That is the real problem.

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