Basis of US Financial Difficulties

    Rudy Baum, Editor-in-Chief of Chemical and Engineering News continues his promotion of Marxism.
    In his July 16 editorial, "Storm Thoughts", he starts out rationally enough. He says no society can afford to harden the infrastructure that supports it to make that infrastructure resistant to such destructive forces as the recent storms that ripped across the Midwest and middle Atlantic states.
    Unfortunately, he then goes on to say that our infrastructure is basically neglected. Roads, bridges, ports, lrvees, water systems, and the electrical grid been ignored for too long. That's false. In my various travels by automobile, I have found the road systems completely adequate. I don't deal directly with ports, but but have heard no complaints with ship docking services.
    He is also on to rant against the looming sequestration, which may take place on January 1. The term sequestration apparently has been manufactured in order to explain mandatory budget expense reductions, which will be effective because a previous committee was unable to develo an appropriate program.
    Rudy bemoans the state of budgets for agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and then goes on to explain that we have reduced unnecessarily our interplanetary space explorations such that we are dependent on the Russians. That is true and regrettable, but the basic problem is the lack of money caused by political hacks granting benefits of health, education, and food subsidies to a large segment of the US population. Since the remaining 50% of federal income tax payers could not afford the expense, massive borrowing by the federal government has put the government in extreme position.
    Rudy ends his article by saying the problem is not that we are broke, the problem is that too many US citizens are willing to contribute their fair share to supporting the social contract. However, the real fact is that producing Americans have been bled to death to support the indigent and the crazy programs dreamed up by various government agencies, with Rudy Baum's support.