S T O P
* borrowing money from other nations
* giving foreign aid to ungrateful nations
* meddling in other nation's civil wars; remember the Monroe Doctrine
* being the world's policeman; keep U.S. troops on U.S. soil
* being the first with the most with emergency assistance
* wasting funds - the GAO has a long list of wastes
S T A R T
* taking care of the people who pay the bills
* thinking about future generations
R E A L I Z E
* we can't buy friends
* people hate the U.S. for its freedoms
* the U.S. does NOT have to be all things to all people
* we have people in the U.S. who need assistance and that "charity" - or in this case, "their due" - begins at home (with the caveat that those that can help themselves will help themselves)
It's really very simple.
There are many - altogether too many - nations on the U.S. dole. Only a handful even attempt to replay their debt to the U.S.
Yet the U.S., trying to buy friends - that never has worked- borrows money from real and potential (political) enemies to give away to others.
Why is the U.S. involved in Libya? Certainly not to protect the dissidents else it would be in Syria and Sudan. Oil? Does anyone think that the dissidents will sell Libyan oil to the U.S. cheaply? What has Syria or Sudan got to offer? In Syria, the conflict is religious; let each sides' coreligionists settle the issue however they like, but let the U.S. stay out of it. Sudan seems to be the same thing, but while Syria is Muslim vs. Muslim, Sudan's oppression is Muslim on non-Muslim.
Why does the U.S. make noise - and only noise - about Iran and is relatively silent about North Korea? Perhaps because it worries about ally South Korea while thinking that only Israel will be attacked in the middle east? South Korea sells cars (Hyundai and Kia) in the U.S., what does the U.S. get from Israel other than technology and a loyal ally? China used to call the U.S. a "paper tiger." Now even the paper is owned by China.
The politicians, if you ask the Government Accounting Office, are spendthrifts; money is wasted left and right, and not just on pork barrel projects. Basic expenses are inflated to the point of obscenity.
The United States has resources beyond measure, but the politicians - of both parties - have pledged them to foreign governments while encouraging companies to send jobs overseas (or bring foreign workers to the U.S. to replace unemployed Americans with equal, or better, credentials).
There are ways to balance the budget or at least get the debt to a reasonable level - that is, one that can be paid "on demand." Regardless of what the talking heads say about government debt being "different" from family debt, to the people who have to PAY the debt, debt is debt is debt.
Our politicians need to work together - they used to and the schism I lay at the feet of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and a few of his political stooges. It is not because the president is a Democrat and the Republicans control the House. Some of the greatest political advances have been made when BOTH houses were one party and the president was of the other party. Currently, the U.S. is, as a former senate candidate declared in 1858, "a house divided," The candidate added that "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
I'm afraid he's right at this point in U.S. history.
