To the editor:
Every day our newspapers, airwaves and cyberspace are bombarded with loud protestations from neocons against government-run programs. “Socialism! Communism!” Such is the indictment of federal programs. Even town meetings on health care reform have become arenas of such loud declamations. Always one to take people at their words, I’m offering these protesters to follow through honestly and renounce three major government programs, Social Security, Medicare, and the Veterans Administration, and replace them with equivalents from the private sector they worship.
The savings to the federal government from that swap are staggering: Social Security, $340 trillion; Medicare, $50 trillion; Veterans Administration, $4 trillion. Total savings to the U.S. government equals $394,000,000,000,000. That’s almost $400 trillion!
These savings would enable this country to fund a world-class universal health care system that would be the envy of the world instead of the grossly inefficient current system that is the ridicule of the developed world (The World Health Organization ranks the USA 37th in the delivery of health care) and have money left over for such worthwhile regional projects as the completion of I-95 to the Valley and the construction of a 4-lane commercial bridge between St. David, Maine and St. Basil, New Brunswick.
How did I arrive at my figures? Since the protestors come mostly from the Republican Party and that party numbers roughly one-third of the electorate, I divided total government expenditure by one third of recipients. Voilà!
Shakespeare to GOP: “You doth protest too much!”
Frenchville
