Commentary: Some Ideas on Reducing the National Debt

[Herb Fellow]

The national debt is now over 9 trillion and growing by $1.55 billion per day. Although I'm no economist I have some ideas that should help reduce that number dramatically. The drawback is that those able to pass necessary legislation to implement these ideas lack the courage to do so. I'll just throw them out to you anyway and see what you think.

At the top of my list of things this country should do is to end the war. Besides the thousands of our best who have died because of lies, there are thousands more who's lives have been shattered and I'm not speaking here about the Iraqis. So far it is costing us more than $525 billion and the bill is growing by $341.4 million every single day. I don't know about you but it doesn't make much sense to me to keep it up, especially when we're in the wrong and have been from the get go.

Michael Reagan in his June 5 column quoted David Horowitz and co-author of "Party of Defeat" Ben Johnson as saying, "George Bush acted solely to enforce a United Nations ultimatum blatantly ignored by Saddam Hussein." But didn't the Bush administration ram that ultimatum through the U.N. in the first place?

One aspect of the cost of this debacle in Iraq not many have brought up is the millions the Veteran's Administration will have to dish out to the wounded for a long, long time. For example, after I was discharged from the Army in 1970 I received a disability ratting from the VA of 30 percent, which translated to $75 per month, but
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like many, my condition worsened and my VA compensation has increased considerably.

Gertrude Janeway, a widow of a Union veteran died in 2003. As a recognized Union widow of the Civil War, she received a $70 check each month from the Veterans Administration. In other words, the cost of a war doesn't stop when the battles do.

As we pull out of Iraq lets also pull out of Korea, Germany and all the other places around this globe were we are not needed or wanted.

Let our soldiers spend their money here in this country for a change.

There is another phony baloney war that needs to come to an end and that's the war on drugs. Our federal government spends $20 billion per year fighting this war and even more is pumped into it by the several states. What has been the out come? Drug use is more prevalent then ever, drug gangs are everywhere and prisons are over crowed.

One of the biggest cost of this war is the money we are losing by not cultivating hemp. There are probably 10,000 or more uses for hemp. We can buy Hemp from Canada but farmers in this country aren't allowed to grow industrial hemp.

Even though the difference between hemp and plants that produce marijuana is like the difference between a cockroach and a turtle, our legislators and judges can't tell the difference.

The legalization and regulation of all drugs, especially marijuana, would give our government more control of the drug traffic, reduce crime because the price of drugs would go way down and the federal revenue would increase considerably through additional taxation.

Ending those two wars would go a long way in winning the war on poverty, or have we capitulated on that one already?

News Moderator: Herb Fellow - http://www.420Magazine.com
Source: Red Bluff Daily News - Red Bluff Daily News Online
Copyright: 2008, Red Bluff Daily News
Contact: Orval Strong, of Gerber, is a 100 percent disabled combat veteran from the Vietnam War era. strongorv@theskybeam.com.
Website: Commentary: Some ideas on reducing the national debt - Red Bluff Daily News Online

[Cherma]

The more continual efforts put forth, education, information with facts attached, overwhelmng support by a majority, we can help this country awaken and lessen the moral and financial debt the governement has incurred