Perhaps the U.S. should stop spending trillions of dollars that they don't have into more war and weapons, stop trying to police and be "heroes" to foreign countries, and focus on putting said money into the welfare of its own country, including NASA, health care, etc. But what do I know? I'm just a Puerto Rican low class trash of the state.
Personally regarding: war, weapons, and foreign policy with respect to the Bush Administration's "War on Terror," I don't believe there was any sincerity in seeking the irrational glorification of being foreign "heroes." I believe that the United States went into Iraq with the expectation that it wouldn't drag on long enough for the American people to scrutinize the war. Based on a PBS Frontline special called, "Cheney's Law" it showed that Cheney was incredibly invested in changing legislation since the Nixon administration to permit the President to act without Congress being able to limit him under any circumstance.
The utilization of rhetoric was utilized as a means to enhance the President's power and the concept of a unitary executive by hiding it within the pretense of national defense going so far as to authorize the President the powers to have, "... all necessary means to stop future terrorist attacks..." Cheney and Addington also sought to restrict the rights of prisoners by having the Office of Legal Counsel change the definition of torture to being an intentional action that results in organ damage. Through using the "War on Terror" as a means of denying Geneva Rights to prisoners of war in order to extract information about operatives, Cheney sought to undermine international agreements to further the President's power and his power as a member of the Executive Branch.
What needs to be understood is that irrational political action such as claiming an interest to be a fore front force against terrorism is never to be taken solely at face value when it seems there are no benefits to be gained. There are multiple facets and factors that play into our international interest in terrorism that have absolutely nothing to do with being a police or heroes.
This also extends to our understanding of national debt and the trillions of dollars that we supposedly owe to other countries. As far as I'm aware of basic macroeconomics, there are no issues with the United States being in debt so far as other countries don't place pressure on the United States to pay back the debt. China has an interest in the United States being in debt because its investment in other countries allows them to depreciate their own and export their products abroad at a cheap cost. At the time of the Debt Ceiling crisis of 2013, Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao wished that Americans would ameliorate the issue as China has investments in the country and did not appear to have an interest in withdrawing from the U.S., especially since a number of its investments involve Treasury Bonds. Japan's Finance Minister Taro Aso also voiced similar sentiments for politicians to resolve the crisis as Japan had a proportional stake of investment in the United States.
In the case that countries we are indebted to demand us to pay back debt, the Treasury will take drastic measures by increasing currency resulting in inflation for the economy.
As for welfare programs, NASA, and healthcare there are far too many issues with these systems that I'm hesitant to agree that throwing more money into these programs will help Americans get the services that are promised or speculated to bring in the future. For example, why we as taxpayers would throw more money into healthcare as it currently exists in the United States is beyond me as the United States does nothing to provide public healthcare and instead sources the responsibility to private healthcare providers who have shown to have no reliability in any dimension.
One dimension is document in a Time's article called "The Bitter Pill" in which the chargemaster of various hospitals showed no unity in determining patient treatment. An issue especially in hospitals where patients tend to have no choice in ending up in one hospital or another:
http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/the-daily-show-features-govt-probe-in-response-to-time-healthcare-expose/ said:
The subsequent government investigation also found huge discrepancies in the price of performing identical procedures. Treating a heart attack with no complications at Danville, Ark. cost $3,334 compared to a whopping $92,057 in Modesto, Cal. And vastly different prices were even being charged within the same state; a pacemaker in Livingston, N.J., costs $70,712 but $101,945 in nearby Rahway.
A .pdf form of the full file can be found here:
http://www.uta.edu/faculty/story/2311/Misc/2013,2,26,MedicalCostsDemandAndGreed.pdf
Sifting money into a system where costs are relative from hospital to hospital rather than standardized across the board indicates that a certain amount of funds are likely going to be used to ameliorate the hospital's private funding problems rather than be used to establish objective health care service for patients. The lack of standardized health cost prices indicates that there is too much inefficiency to view providing indirect funding to be a purely public benefit.
Another dimension to consider regarding our current healthcare system is that institutions that are funded by taxpayer dollars do an inadequate and unethical job of treating patients. The Daily Show had a segment called, "Ignoring Private Ryan" in which it cited the V.A. in Pittsburgh as hiding the fact that there was a case of Legionnares Disease for more than a year due to the facility's old water system (testing positive), however didn't evacuate patients or address the issue until a veteran died due to the disease (William Nicklas).
In a V.A. Hospital in Buffalo New York, insulin pens were reused on multiple patients over the span of two years resulting in the spread of hepatitis among over seven hundred patients. In both institutions bonuses were given out to directors Terry Gerigk Wolf and David West. Not to mention the 2014 case in Phoenix V.A. Hospital where the hospital was revealed to be putting veterans on a secondary waiting list that received delayed attention.
Veterans hospitals after being exposed for unethical behavior are now demanding higher budgets to "fix" the issue. However, the problem is within greater politics that there is a pressure on directors to view the current hospital as being compliant with standard practice despite these institutions being farther than ever from having standard practice and equipment compared to compliance standards.
Sifting money into the V.A. is already a lost cause since there is no longer a reliable way to trust the V.A. in any capacity. The fact that bonuses were given out to the directors of all the facilities indicates that appropriate patient care is not scrutinized when it comes to allocation of funding and the system is plagued by insincerity and fraudulent practice that the lack of ethical standards means that there is likely a plethora of problems in providing healthcare in the V.A. then they have been scrutinized for in the past.
The third dimension is the fact that there is no longer any real form of government oversight when it comes to private institutions and we continually see the government actually working towards progressing the interest of private institutions rather than punishing them for prioritizing profit over patients. You cannot support government healthcare, because there is no government involvement in healthcare aside from subsidizing an untouched privatized system on the sanctity of all that is capitalism.
When you give deference to big corporations like Mylan, a large pharmaceutical company that was based in P.A. they have no obligation to commit to America aside from making profit off of American consumers. Mylan in an act of tax aversion committed tax inversion in which they moved their headquarters to the Netherlands where they will receive a lower tax rate and still have the ability to sell drugs in the United States. In a 2001 West Virginia Tax Credit List it was shown that Mylan which makes generic prescription drugs in Morgantown, topped $2.35 million in credits, defraying its spending on research and development, job creation and industrial expansion. Some other benefits for: Industrial Expansion / Revitalization [$100,000 to $250,000],, Manufacture Investment [$100,000 to $250,000], Research and Development [$500,000 to $1 million],
Strategic Research and Development [$1 million], Super Credit [$1 million] Plus Against Business Franchise Taxes, Super Credit [$500,000 to $1 million] Against Corporate Net, and Historic Rehabilitation Buildings Credit [$1 to $50,000].
Also, the Department of Veteran Affairs granted Mylan four contracts since 2009 valued at nearly $3 billion.
My overall impression is that there are numerous gross inefficiencies within the United States across all sectors to the point where re-allocating funds is not the best solution towards providing actual service to taxpayers or those in need. A core belief of mine is that the government needs to stop subsidizing private business, especially when it has been agreed that costs are high and ridiculous as is for maintaining the current programs. I believe that the government should become involved in the healthcare process as a competitor offering services beyond Medicare like their own form of private insurance, their own medications, and quality care hospitals at a competitive price setting with the intention to generate profit for mitigating taxpayer costs. I believe there have been too many instances of private institutions failing to responsibly offer Americans the medication and plan coverage they actually need in order to function as people for the government to pretend that it's not the biggest issue for them to tackle at the moment.
