Remove the pork from our spending

With all the back and forth about the country being bankrupt, why don't we have leaders saying that the way you eliminate your debt is to spend less? This is what most regular people do.

I heard it said one time that the elimination of the fraud in the Medicaid system alone would eliminate the current discussion of deficit. Are we really this stupid as a country that we will continue putting our hand in the fire and complain when we get burned?

I am tired of the cheap rhetoric that is addressed to me as a conservative. On NPR today (I was just flicking through the stations) I heard them discussing Sharron Angle's analysis of old Harry Reid's vote to give prisoners Viagra. They commented that it was a typical attack, but not really accurate. Reid didn't really vote for it, but he didn't vote against it for expediency sake because they wanted to push the legislation through. Then they went on about the Viagra inclusion and that this what “they” do they find something that is beneficial for everyone and pick on the fact that prisoners may get Viagra also.

Really? We are in a massive debt crisis but feel it necessary to cover Viagra in a health program? Breast augmentation, gender re-identification surgery, abortion, what next? We are letting a group of people who have never successfully run any program and turning the entire country over to them. If only we studied history instead of “family planning” in high school, maybe we would understand the proclamation “Give me liberty, or give me death.”

Michael O'Brien

Prospect Heights