<IMHO, if you make it big in the USA, you owe your dues back to the system that made it possible. I'm not saying yer not entitled to the 5 Million dollar home and the Viper in the garage... They are (and they have it), but you owe the system and the electorate that helped make it happen.

I've heard this before here, and I don't buy it. Granted, there are a lot of things that make it possible to make a lot of money in America, but ninety percent of them have to do with the government staying out of the free economy. If anything, I make money in spite of the government.

Can you name one thing that the "system" or the "electorate" did for me that allowed me to make a good living, that it did not also do for the poorest person in the country? I should pay ten times the taxes for the same amenities and government services that most people pay little or nothing for? Do I use ten times the cops, the roads, the fire trucks? Am I protected by ten times the number of soldiers that protect anyone else? Do I get ten times the Social Security when I retire?

If sheer fairness and justice had anything to do with it, everyone would pay almost the same amount of taxes--not same percentage, same amount--as everyone else, regardless of income. But that's not what it's all about, is it?

Face it, the rich and upper middle-classes are carrying almost all the freight, and if you subscribe to the "Robin Hood Principle* " as most liberals do, I suppose you think this is exactly how it should be.

As for "defining up" the Federal Budget, our current budget is over TWICE what it was in 1974. In constant dollars, adjusted for inflation.

I was there in 1974. Old people were not starving in the streets. Social Security checks were being issued on time. Military spending was at the height of the Cold War. Schools were funded. Every major need that would ordinarily be met by government was being met.

Am I supposed to believe that some of this bloated expansion is not waste?

There are not twice as many people in the nation than there was in 1974. There are not twice as many poor, or elderly, or school children. There are not twice as many aircraft carriers, or tanks. It is inconceivable that, as the Democrats claim, every dollar of the current budget is critical to the existence of this nation, and until real cuts start being made, things will only get worse.

*The Robin Hood Principle: If someone has something you do not have, and you think you need it badly, it is right and moral to take it from them by armed force.

Robin Hood comes into it as the third party who actually does the dirty work for you. Dressed up all nice and pretty, this describes the function of about two-thirds of our current Federal government. As with Robin Hood, flowers are strewn in the paths of politicians who specialize in it.

Not dressed up all nice and pretty, it describes the moral code of the guy who holds you up at the ATM machine.