I mean, no nation can survive when they spend like this, and we could have actually cut health care costs a lot, without harming the industry other than INSURANCE, by HALF in the next 10 years, and at the same time given Americans a lot better care. Frankly, given how insane our diet is, I think with a rational system that helps people we could have cut a lot more cost than that, becuase the Europeans have a healthy diet to begin with!

So we are decadent, corrupt, really, corrupt, I guess...this is what happens to empires, right? The leaders become rich, arrogant, selfish, corrupt, greedy? Isn't that the usual recipe?

When half the people carry the tax load and entitlements have grown at 9% a year since the advent of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society (look around, ain't it great) while GDP averaged about 3%, then what else would you expect?

Well all good things cannot last. Americans are way too fat. Having less is a good thing.

Americans are way too fat.

Are we now? So, what do you think the government should set as the acceptable BMI index, how should the government monitor yours, and what should the government set as punishment for non-compliance?

Locking away your twinkies looks like a fair punishment.

There is no need for the government to set acceptable BMI rates. All conservatives know that Obama is going to bankrupt the USA and then we will have no food to eat, and thus we will all lose weight.

Really, if you listen to conservatives the USA has only a few more years until we are a third world nation.

All republicans want Obama to bankrupt the country because that would be a step towards a permanent republican majority. It was a republican who talked about exactly that and drowning the government in a bathtub, remember?

With as much effort as the republicans have put into deficit spending, tax cuts and spending increases....it is hard to believe that they didn't have bankruptcy in mind.

The national debt was quadrupled while Reagan/Bush and Bush/Quayle were in office. "W" borrowed and spent another $6 trillion bucks.

You have to wonder what would have happened if we'd elected Perot in 92 or anybody else in 2000.

The last thing we want is another republican talking about making government smaller....

we voted for a guy who ran two oil companies into the ground. Guess what?

Bush was nothing if not consistent.

Boca:

When half the people carry the tax load ...

Historically speaking, half would be pretty good.When the modern income tax was first established in 1916, only 1% of the population paid it. Only a small minority paid income tax until WW2. The number of income taxpayers went from 4 million in 1939 to 43 million in 1945.