We have a crippling deficit because we are propping up a broken economic system and pursing questionable foreign policies.

Health is an economic problem. We have the most expensive healthcare system in the world and – and compared to other industrialized countries – we are near the bottom on many health league tables. There are many ways to reform healthcare and to fund a universal health scheme cost effectively. A good book on the subject is Lawrence J. Kotilkoff’s The Healthcare Fix: Universal Insurance for All Americans.

Millions of people are at risk because they don’t have health insurance and the likelihood of a jobs recovery in the next 3 – 5 years is very slim indeed. I sincerely hope Gene Tunney doesn’t lose his health insurance since the consequences of no insurance is a very short route to bankruptcy in the event of a major health problem.

Throwing money at Wall Street is what the system demands of those elected to govern. Tunney’s “elect statesmen” solution is naive since our elected representatives are products of the system.

Our system is broken and no amount of “the shining city on the hill” or “the greatest country on earth” rhetoric will change the incontrovertible truth that the US is in precipitous decline and the divide between the two America’s, ‘the haves and the have nots,’ is widening at an alarming rate. Time is running out on many fronts – the economy, healthcare, social security and the environment. We can arrest the decline, but we will need to realize that personal freedom can’t be at the expense of social responsibility.”