If I were President

My wife beat me to it : http://justleeblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/if-i-were-president.html. I had post similar to this planned kept putting it off.

To put a few numbers to it, I would propose a federal budget of about $800 billion. Roughly $600 billion for the defense department and the other $200 billion for the other legitimate functions of government (coining money, maintaining relations with other countries - you know, the ones actually spelled out in the constitution).

Unfortunately, the only way I see this ever happening is if it happened at once, no weaning, just a complete cut off of all of the other crap. Sure it would be painful, probably 3-5 years of misery for our country as everything was restructured and people got used to not calling Uncle Sam for all of their problems.

Let me elaborate on that. Uncle Sam is a perfect symbol of what our country should be. Notice it isn't Daddy or Mommy Sam, it is Uncle Sam. Uncles are great. They can take an interest in you, help you out on rare occasions, but in the end both you and they know, they are not responsible for you. You would never think of asking them to provide for your college education, although you might ask to come visit for Thanksgiving dinner. You might take a vacation to go fishing with them, but they expect you to pay for your half of the bait. And they may have that sportscar you've always dreamed of, which when you ask to take it for a ride (if they have two cents worth of brains) will laugh in your face and say "Fat chance." Uncle Sam needs to be more like that.

I thought about being President when I was younger. Not anymore.