Military For Nothing, Benefit Checks For Free

I want my, I want my, I want my Fox TV. I want my, I want my, I want MSNBC.

Our country has a truth problem. Pretty much no politician can handle telling it. And the American people can't handle hearing it.

The truth is we've been getting a lot of things from our government that we are not paying for. For a very long time.

When we are feeling the least bit afraid or insecure, a new war is started on our behalf. But there is no war tax. There is no rationing of food, gas or clothing like there used to be when we went to war. No scrap drives, no rubber drives.

Not only do we take for granted that our shores will be defended and the mail will be delivered, we expect the food supply to be inspected, hot lunches at school for our kids, our bank accounts insured. We've grown accustomed to a thousand other things big and small, from parks and libraries and police and fire departments to roads and bridges and water treatment and garbage pick-up and financial security in our old age.

No politician of any stripe is telling the American people to stop taking all this for granted. Yet they keep telling us we are overtaxed. Never mind that we are paying less of our incomes in taxes than any time in the last 60 years.

The maddening debt-ceiling talks in Washington are but a political manifestation of America's juvenile attitude about paying our bills. Politicians of every stripe have been telling the American people that they deserve more and more from their government but should pay less and less for what we get. That has sounded like a good deal and we've happily accepted the bargain. But it is a lie we're living.

The truth is government spending must be cut. And taxes need to be raised. Getting less from government while paying more for it sounds like a lousy deal, but if we want to avert financial disaster, it is the truth. We don't want to hear the truth, and the politicians can't bear to tell it. Leaving America in dire straits.