Saturday, August 31, 2013

OUR GOVERNMENT JUST DOESN'T GET IT

Here's the ugly secret...Americans...the vast majority of Americans actually like socialism. Admittedly, most don't know what it is, but they count on Social Security and Medicare, appreciate unemployment insurance, are willing to pay for food stamps for the truly indigent and the like.
We are not as unhappy with how much you spend (the deficit is too abstract for most) as it is what you spend our money on.
If you have traveled oversees, you see governments that are completely able to extend socialized medicine benefits, extensive vacation periods, educational systems that seem to work, high speed rail, subways.... infrastructures in general that are much, much better than ours.
But we don't have any of that...our return on our financial investment....the taxes we pay, is next to nothing. And it's because we spend our money on wars, a vast defense department, missile defenses, oil subsidies and tax credits, foreign aid, farm subsidies, and bridges to nowhere.....not to mention reducing our revenue with tax cuts for corporations and the affluent.
And this doesn't even mention the idiotic things...millions of dollars in ridiculous studies that make the news every year....studies on topics ranging from the mating habits of fruit flies to the dangerous lifestyles of male prostitutes in Vietnam (actual studies).  $76 million on an effort to round up wild horses.....you have undoubtedly heard about many of these over the years......no, you can spend money, if we get something to show for it, but we rarely do.
And having said all of that, let me tell you what we taxpayers really become enraged at...your stupidity costing us money. $3.3 billion lost in paying off fraudulent unemployment claims, $4.5 billion paying off improper food stamp claims, $30 billion on a Medicaid audit system that costs more than it saves, $11 billion in faulty IRS payments.....if a business ran this ineptly they would be out of business by Wednesday. That's a lot of money spent because we (you) are stupid.
Maybe if the budget wasn't 400 pages, our government officials would actually read it and some of this would end. And in doing so, maybe, just maybe, they would start to get it.
And that's the world...the "World According to Kimba." Thanks for reading.