I think it may be worse: all federal expenses are paid by PRIVATE SECTOR taxes, that means the private sector is also paying the taxes that public sector folks pay out of their paychecks, which we pay them.

It is even worse than that. Just last week I heard a Politician (don't remember name but it had a D after it) Was on the news talking about how much in taxes all those new 100,000 dollar a year federal workers paid. They just don't get it that when they pay those wages and get back 13% we the taxpayers still lost 87%. I don't know what we can do but it is starting to look like a lost cause.

So what brilliant schemes are our most noble progressives implementing that Greece obviously missed?

Oh, yes. We can just print more money.

You just gotta love those liberals.

If Obama gets back in it will be a lost cause.

The options then will be few but I believe the dividing of our nation to be a worthwile cause. Let the progressives have their utopia, I don't want any part of it.

We can take our Constitution with us and narrow the scope of the commerse clause that the left has used to destroy our country.

I already feel that Obama is NOT my president after repeatedly violating his oath of office. The POTUS is supposed to protect and defend the Constitution not try to fundamentally transform the nation. He is guilty of deriliction of duty at best or treason. Take your pick. He is an insideous domestic enemy.

We didn't become a dependent nation overnight and by ourselves. It took government and forced excessive taxation to get us here.

We've paid SS tax for years, most of us on 100% of our income as our earnings were below the cap, while the really rich and famous paid on a comparative pittance of what their income.

Had we been allowed to invest that same amount, had our government had some honor and integrity and invested our money as tho it were their own instead of spending it like it was their own, we'd all be better off.

As it is, they have been screwing us for so long and so hard they have left many of us with no choice. If it wasn't for my SS and VA disability I'd have been in the streets long ago.

As a disabled veteran, I can tell you what I get isn't an 'entitlement.' I earn that monthly payment today the same as I did nearly 40 years ago, with sleepless nights, distrust of anybody - including my own family - approaching from my blind side, and pain in the heart every time I hear of another of my brothers ailing or dying from this or that cancer. People who have been in combat don't come home the same, and very few if any ever return to any semblance the person they once were. This impedes their ability to succeed in most jobs and limits their chances for promotion right off the bat, and when the media is complicit in lying to the public, telling them selective stories and making us the bad guys, in building up public resentment of us, it makes it even worse.

After working for a company for nearly a decade, buying a home, and beginning a family, I went to work one day and was greeted by the new district manager with, "You were in Nam. As far as I'm concerned all of you are drug addicts and alcoholics and you don't deserve a dam thing. You're all a bunch of losers. I'll fire you the first chance I get."

Now if you think the smack upside the head, the emotional trauma and stress from that wasn't as bad as getting blown up by a 120mm mortar or an 500 pound bomb IED, well ...

Hey Pete,

Sounds like a wonderful guy.

Why, I'd like to meet that dist. manager of yours, I think we'd get along just dandy. I'd even like to show him my collection.

Ask him if he'd be interested in a little hunting trip and get back to me.

@Pete. Thanks for what you did. I missed being drafted by the fact that Nixon decided no more warm bodies would be taken into the military as of Jan 1, 1973. I preach to folks all the time about the lousy food, beds, billets, missions, etc., not to mention the common occurrence of getting wounded or killed. Those of us in the red portions of the country gratefully acknowledge your many and tremendous sacrifices. As for your former boss, I like to fish at a particularly deep lake. Think he would like to learn how to fish in a deep lake?

Pete, I honor you for your sacrifices! The attitude demonstrated by the district manager is part of the problem! Sir, I salute you!

This column plainly presents THE single, pivotal issue of this election year. In every debate and appearance this dependency/self-reliance issue can be raised and hung around the President's neck, and each Republican challenger should present ideas to address the problem. This is how you campaign against Obama, and I believe it must be hammered home that he is the candidate and the party of dependency, and federal government dependency must be reduced if America is to retain its promises of freedom and opportunity to its citizens, and the world.

Alas, we may have already passed the tipping point. As Edward Gibbon wrote: “In the end more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.” I will link to this from my Old Jarhead blog.

Robert A. Hall

Author: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic

All royalties go to help wounded veterans

For a free PDF of my book, write tartanmarine(at)gmail.com

@pete,

Cripple, I do not know where to begin, os, I'll just start:

I don't know when you served, but you have internet access. Did you have such in the mud and blood??

What skills do you bring to your employer??

Why are you not self employed??

My crippled @ss has been that way for the last 28.

I found a job that would pay the bills. I thought about being an entrepenuer, but my cripples don't make me the most photogenic salesman.

But I motivated my younger to graduate HS @ 16. (Private school, 10K/y for the both of them.) The elder is getting ready to Graduate from a Private University with only 10K in debt, @ 8%, which really chaps my behind.

The younger is still seeking, but understands that her future is hers, and hers alone. I've paid enough.

I was really pi ssed when I found out that my monthly VA Disability/WELfare check completely erased Bush II's "Tax rebate".

In other words: Get off your sorry @ss and DO! Refuse to depend. Or, Spend your welfare checks on "Depends".

js, Army Infantry, Ranger, Airborne, DAV.

Be blessed, and be transfigured, not malfigured. js

@Pete et al

Pete, I don't think anyone here has a problem with the U.S. paying benefits to its combat veterans just as workers injured on their jobs should get benfits to make them whole (as near as can be). As you note, they earn it. Washington once wrote that the willingness of our young people to serve is directly related to their perception of how the veterans of past wars are treated.

Paying able-bodied couch potatoes to lay on their arses is another matter.

The point of Feulner's commentary is much broader. With one half of Americans paying NO TAXES, they are voting for more and more benefits (by voting for corrupt politicians who promise them The IMPOSSIBLE), we are bound to have a conflict. At some point ATLAS will decide to SHRUG.

Ben Franklin predicted that all liberty would be lost when voters determined they could vote themselves money from the treasury.

Having long ago abandoned our Constitution as being relevant to limiting the D.C. Leviathan, we are now in the Tyranny of the Majority phase. As Thomas Jefferson described it, "Democracy is nothing more than mob rule where 51 percent of the people take away the rights of the other 49."

We are long past the tipping point where just over half the country votes to force the 49% (or less) to provide material comforts for the rest. The 49% no longer own the fruits of their own labor.

Long ago, we called that condition of servitude "slavery." We even Amended the Constitution in 1865 to forbid chattel slavery before we ratified an Amendment to enable tax slavery in 1913 (16th - Income taxes). Now, progressives like Ohdrama call it "fairness."

Adjust your chains, folks, and get comfortable.

Pete, that is a good post. I too served in the nam. Three tours as a U.S. Marine. I am sorry you were disabled as i only suffered from PTSD which is not considered a disability. Thank for your service to our country.We have become a nation where 49.5 % pay no taxes.There are too many entitlement programs for the number of tax payers.we have a congress that spends like there is no tomorrow.easy to spend someone else's money. Had Social Security been left in its own fund there would be plenty of money. Had millions of jobs not been outsourced there would be plenty of jobs in America so many entitlement programs would have not been necessary. it has been said, if you take from Peter to pay Paul, you can always count of the support of Paul.

Atlas Shrugged?

Mr. Feulner says, "But it's going to take some serious political will -- the kind that comes only when We the People apply pressure." The problem is, as he mentions elsewhere in the column, that nearly half of the people are those who won't apply the pressure of "We the People," because they don't want to cut off their entitlements and government handouts.

I suppose this is so late that no one will read it. But I think it needs to be said.

Does anyone here doubt that much of the current mess we are in has been CAUSED by Bad Government?

Things were rough enough for us before the housing crash in 2008. Since then things have been worse. I probably lost $40k in 2009 when I sold the house I had been trying to sell for 6 years. That was long enough that I had to pay tax on the "gain." But I just had to get out from under 2 mortgage payments. That really hurt. It was supposed to pay off the debt that I had been accumulating while carrying 2 mortgages. The housing crash also eliminated the good contract I was working. I have been scrounging since May 2008 for work and never have enough. Should I NOT get food stamps to help feed my kids? I am also a vet, and the VA has been of some help. Should I not get the help available now when we need it after all the years of paying taxes? When the Government CAUSED much of the pain we are in?

I would rather work and have to worry about having enough to pay the tax man. But that is not where we are at and I don't think I'll be there again until after the next election. Until then, scrounge for work and scrimp and try to get by.

if you will look carefully at the entitlements - a staggering majority of these are going to the elderly.

Your Money Is Spent On %

National Defense 20%

Veterans and Foreign Affairs 4%

Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Related Programs 16%

Unemployment and Social Services 9%

Social Security, Medicare, and Other Retirement 36%

Net Interest on the Debt 6%

Law Enforcement and General Government 2%

Physical, Human, and Community Development 7%