How many of you have ever talked with a congressman/woman in person? The vast majority aren't as dumb/evil/whatever as most people like to make them out to be. Take a little time to actually look beyond the headline grabbers.
One of the best talks I've ever heard in person was from a relatively unkown Democratic representative from Arkansas during an infrastructure meeting in Texarkana, TX earlier this summer. Sat down at lunch with him and he answered every question I had very intelligently on a range of issues. Same thing with many of our Texas representatives I've had the chance to meet over the years - from both parties.
Running a country is way more complicated than its made out to be. Gripe all you want, our system is many times more efficient than any other country in the world - from the federal govt all the way down to our local towns and counties. If you don't like things, make time to run for local office.
Our current and future financial problems boil down to one thing - our entitlement programs (social security, medicare, etc). Those cost of all of those dwarf everything else we spend money on (infrastructure, environmental regulations, agencies, forgeign aid, military, etc.) We still don't spend as much on entitlements as most counties which is what has France, the UK, and Greece in such dissarray. But how many of you or your parents are willing to give social security or medicare up? Don't gripe about everyone else unless you are willing to give something up yourself. We've done too good of a job making people live longer and its bankrupting us on many fronts.
The other best current event talk I've ever heard, albeit via Youtube, was from Mike Rowe (the Dirty Job/Dangerous Catch guy). He gave a talk somewhere on our "war on work". I'm sure you could search for it and find it. It might have even been linked here a while ago, I don't remember. My favorite point he made was the fact that we all feel we are entitled to retirement. The idea of retirement is frankly less than a 100 years old and is probably not sustainable. For all of history, families took care of each other. Our system of kids moving way off and expecting the government to take care of our elderly parents through social security, medicare, nursing homes, etc will put a huge strain on our whole economy in the next 20-30 years. The reality is unproductive humans have a really big cost that we all pay for one way or another. It's not illegal immigrants that's the problem - they work and they take care of their families - they have no other choice. It's our U.S. citizens that don't work at all their whole lives or that feel entitled to sit on their rears and do absolutely nothing for 20 years after they turn 60 that will break us.
One of the best talks I've ever heard in person was from a relatively unkown Democratic representative from Arkansas during an infrastructure meeting in Texarkana, TX earlier this summer. Sat down at lunch with him and he answered every question I had very intelligently on a range of issues. Same thing with many of our Texas representatives I've had the chance to meet over the years - from both parties.
Running a country is way more complicated than its made out to be. Gripe all you want, our system is many times more efficient than any other country in the world - from the federal govt all the way down to our local towns and counties. If you don't like things, make time to run for local office.
Our current and future financial problems boil down to one thing - our entitlement programs (social security, medicare, etc). Those cost of all of those dwarf everything else we spend money on (infrastructure, environmental regulations, agencies, forgeign aid, military, etc.) We still don't spend as much on entitlements as most counties which is what has France, the UK, and Greece in such dissarray. But how many of you or your parents are willing to give social security or medicare up? Don't gripe about everyone else unless you are willing to give something up yourself. We've done too good of a job making people live longer and its bankrupting us on many fronts.
The other best current event talk I've ever heard, albeit via Youtube, was from Mike Rowe (the Dirty Job/Dangerous Catch guy). He gave a talk somewhere on our "war on work". I'm sure you could search for it and find it. It might have even been linked here a while ago, I don't remember. My favorite point he made was the fact that we all feel we are entitled to retirement. The idea of retirement is frankly less than a 100 years old and is probably not sustainable. For all of history, families took care of each other. Our system of kids moving way off and expecting the government to take care of our elderly parents through social security, medicare, nursing homes, etc will put a huge strain on our whole economy in the next 20-30 years. The reality is unproductive humans have a really big cost that we all pay for one way or another. It's not illegal immigrants that's the problem - they work and they take care of their families - they have no other choice. It's our U.S. citizens that don't work at all their whole lives or that feel entitled to sit on their rears and do absolutely nothing for 20 years after they turn 60 that will break us.
