SHINING CITY...OR GARBAGE DUMP

Having followed politics and current events for 60 years now, it is with great distress and it takes great effort to follow the sham public debate occurring on Capitol Hill over the debt crisis.

Any discussion of reducing the public debt by tossing thousands of hard working folks securing the social safety net off the payrolls is a sham.

Any discussion of reducing the public debt without ending our trillion dollar criminal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia is a sham.

Any discussion of reducing the public debt without reducing the bloated national security extravagance which accounts to over 50% of discretionary spending is a sham.

Any discussion of reducing the public debt without reducing the swollen non-war military budget which has increased 70% in the last ten years is a sham.

Any discussion of reducing the public debt without having the greedy rich pay their fair share of taxation is a sham.

Any discussion of reducing the pubic debt based on even further cuts to rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure is a sham.

Any discussion of reducing the public debt based on reductions in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security is a sham.

The aforementioned 60 years of study can be neatly divided into two 30 year periods. The first 30 years was one of seemingly endless progress creating the greatest middle class in history, building the unsurpassed national highway system, erasing the sorrowful stain of racial discrimination against our black brothers and sisters, addressing the urgent need to protect our environment, and on and on. Entrepreneurs paid up to 90% of their earnings in taxes and still created tens of millions of jobs. That is what entrepreneurs do. The greedy rich simply brag about the size of their stash.

Sadly, the last 30 years brought a new political philosophy to the fore. Government was the new evil so it had to be destroyed to allow the greedy rich and the war lovers to wreck their havoc on the less fortunate and the social fabric. A fading movie star rode onto Capital Hill slashing taxes, dismantling sensible regulation, gutting the Sherman Anti Trust laws, dismissing use of government to solve real social problems. His mantra: "government is not the solution; government is the problem" represent the nine most infamous words in American history; yet they are the mantra of the upper 1% which now has most of our wealth and most of our power.

And that Shining City on the Hill that the fading movie star waxed so eloquently about? It's actually turning into a garbage dump.