This may be a little off the political back and forth normally found here, but it is infuriating to me and I have to get it off my chest.

I heard McCain today talking about "pork barrel" spending, something about 10 million for asparagus and 20 million for some endangered animal.  He gets all the outrage he was lloking for and the dull eyed masses before him nod and cheer.  Obama talks about universal healthcare and $1000 tax rebates.  Clinton is talking about suspending the gas taxes.

These people are nuts. 

It is like listening to someone who is going into foreclosure on thier house and making plans for a trip to Europe at the same time.  This country is broke. 

Lets take a look at the largest tax expenditures in the budget, Social security, medicare and medicaid, the DOD, and the treasury department.  OK, social security and mediacaid are payroll taxes, these are regressive taxes (higher percentage paid by lower incomes) and there is a surplus in the social security payments, not sure about medicaid.  The depatrment of defense is a huge expenditure, for all the conservatives out there, get it through your head that a war is a government spending program.  The treasury is the fourth largest expenditure, and you may be thinking, well what does that entail?  This is our debt servicing branch of the government.  Social security money goes to care for the elderly and disabled, the money is circulated back into the economy in the form of normal living expenses that stimulate all the ancilary industries like housing, gas, food... etc.   Medicare goes to healthcare for elderly and low income citizens, and again the money is recycled into the economy supporting healthcare, hospice, medical and pharmacuetical industries.  The DOD pays for the military and weapons systems, again working it's way in the US economy for the living expenses of all of the military, as well as supporting boeing, raytheon, and numerous other companies that support our economy.

Then there is treasury, this goes to float the US debt on to another day.  The money paid out goes to T-bill holders in the US, but a large part goes out to soverign funds holding US assets.  This means that your tax dollars go out to pay China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, UAE... etc  on interest for loans to the US government.  This money largely does not go back into the US economy, and hurts the value of the dollar depreciating any savings or assets you might hold.

Lets get perspective, a 150 million dollar one time expense bridge to nowhere gets everyone excited as being wasteful, but really it would employ US citizens and provide a tangible piece of infastructure to this country however needless it may be.  On the other hand, the last budget passed by the congress and signed  into law had a 450 billion dollar deficit.  This translates into a roughly 22.5 BILLION dollar RECURRING expense every year.  That would be the same as taking every B2 bomber in the airforce (22 of them at a billion a piece) destroying them and replacing them every year. And at the end of the year, start over again, destroy every plane and pay for them again.

Just as a matter of practicality, Social security payouts will not decrease in the coming years.  Medicare will not decrease int eh coming years.  the DOD budget may decrease somewhat if we get out of Iraq, but year over year it will probably increase.  The only significant part of the budget than can be reduced is the treasury.  That means paying our damn bills.  From where we are now, we need to have a multibillion dollar surplus running for DECADES before we can start talking about tax cuts.  The quick fix ideology of the repubicans may have well ruined this country if cold realists do not cast some light on our current state of affairs and change attitudes.  So the next time you hear about  pork barrel spending, yell out "how much is the budget deficit costing us" 

This is also a national security issue, every nation prepares for the last war that was fought. Conflict always comes down to financing, and we are mortgaging ourselves out to any nation willing to pay.  It seems that the government is blind to the serious jeopardy our debt is putting us into.