It really comes down to the public

Until recently I thought that it came down to politicians to mislead the public into believing that this plan or the other would do the trick. It used to think that 2010 was a year of a very important election.
I thought that Democratic Party has lost a golden opportunity to level with the American people about the real picture of the country.
Don’t get me wrong there is still a clear choice. On a one hand we have a group of people who say that we, as insurmountable as the problems and the present status seem, if we stay the course we will see the light at the end of the tunnel. The other side believes in the same medicine for every illness: tax cuts.
I always say if doctors would prescribe every illness with the same medication, not only we would need them but we wouldn’t need the pharmaceutical companies as one would supply us with the one miracle medicine that would cure us.
But reality is different, and that applies to this as well. To make matters worse they encourage companies to export jobs to China, India and other Asian nations. A friend of mine believes that exporting jobs is good. He should tell that to all the people who have been unemployed for more than 99 weeks (99ers), and these people include PHDs, masters, etc., who have lost their house, their savings, and their livelihood. Our real unemployment is close to 20%.
So in that respect I think the choice is simple.
But my conclusion is that people don’t want to hear the facts. They behave like brats. They think that they are entitled to gas at 2.75 a gallon, pay low taxes, buy houses that they cannot afford, be the police of the world.
Let’s start with taxes, the Obama administration should tell the American people to grow up. Gasoline at 2.75 is unreal, because the moment that we add the cost of the Department of Defense to that, and the subsidies that the oil companies receive we are looking at probably the same amount that the rest of the world pays or higher, 6 or 7 dollars a gallon. Why do I mention the D.O.D. in this? Simple, we invaded Iraq because they have oil, not because of the weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein or any other excuse. If Iraq had just dust, like Sudan has, we would have never moved a finger.
Pay low taxes, another lie. By the time we add the federal income tax, state tax, social security, medical coverage, co-pays, etc., we are paying more than the Europeans and Canadians do.
And I don’t think I have to talk about housing as we will continue to see values deteriorate as far as the eye can see, especially when we are looking at possibly 3 million foreclosures in 2010.
The solution, in my opinion, is simple but unpopular. I don’t like to be deceived. In order to balance the Federal Budget, we should cut defense in half, roll back the age of retirement for social security, eliminate the cap for taxation of social security, eliminate the Bush tax cuts for everybody, not just the top, pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and possibly raise taxes if need be. We either do this now, or we can fool ourselves for years to come, until there will no longer be a United States.