This could be/is a typical republican comment. Some facts mixed in with a lot of wrong information and innuendo. Your first paragraph is absolutely correct. We don’t trust our government mostly BECAUSE it is run by special interests. Your second paragraph is off. “continues to advance social agendas” is just a repub scare phrase. Do you mean the social agendas like building and maintaining roads and bridges, or building schools? Or the socialist Medicare? You have to remember the government is us. We ultimately have the power to change, fix, or destroy anything the government does. I agree totally that “paying a fair share” these days is a joke. When we have one party that will do anything to remedy unfair taxation and protects corporate profits at any cost, it makes it very hard to ‘fix’ anything. (i.e. healthcare) Your health care conversation is totally within a republican frame. NONE of the health care reform attempts would have the government “providing health care”. Doctors, hospitals, nurses etc. do that and the proposed reforms don’t change that. The reform proposals deal with the middle man, the insurance industry. The insurance industry serves NO PURPOSE except to make profit. And the way they make profit is to charge us the MOST they can, and give us the LEAST actual health care possible. You, the patient, and the doctor will never ever be in charge of your health care as long as there is an insurance agent in the middle making the decisions. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you would like health care for all. (you did mention the ‘under productive’ and ‘those who don’t have funds’) After all, the alternative is what, let them die in the street? The trick is to set the premiums for our government insurance system (without insurance profit) at a rate that will pay for the system. As with all government programs (our programs) this should be monitored closely and adjusted when necessary. Your last paragraph is again, absolutely correct. How do we fix our confidence in government? One thing I would suggest is there should be a penalty for lying. If a company advertises a product and says “this product will grow hair on your head” and if fact it does not grow hair, there is a penalty: fines, retractions, etc. But if a politician or regular citizen proclaims “death panels will pull the plug on grandma” which is an absolute lie, there is no penalty. Lying and misleading is the name of the game in US politics. How do we fix that?

This could be/is a typical republican comment. Some facts mixed in with a lot of wrong information and innuendo. Your first paragraph is absolutely correct. We don’t trust our government mostly BECAUSE it is run by special interests. Your second paragraph is off. “continues to advance social agendas” is just a repub scare phrase. Do you mean the social agendas like building and maintaining roads and bridges, or building schools? Or the socialist Medicare? You have to remember the government is us. We ultimately have the power to change, fix, or destroy anything the government does. I agree totally that “paying a fair share” these days is a joke. When we have one party that will not do anything to remedy unfair taxation and protects corporate profits at any cost, it makes it very hard to ‘fix’ anything. (i.e. healthcare) Your health care conversation is totally within a republican frame. NONE of the health care reform attempts would have the government “providing health care”. Doctors, hospitals, nurses etc. do that and the proposed reforms don’t change that. The reform proposals deal with the middle man, the insurance industry. The insurance industry serves NO PURPOSE except to make profit. And the way they make profit is to charge us the MOST they can, and give us the LEAST actual health care possible. You, the patient, and the doctor will never ever be in charge of your health care as long as there is an insurance agent in the middle making the decisions. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you would like health care for all. (you did mention the ‘under productive’ and ‘those who don’t have funds’) After all, the alternative is what, let them die in the street? The trick is to set the premiums for our government insurance system (without insurance profit) at a rate that will pay for the system. As with all government programs (our programs) this should be monitored closely and adjusted when necessary. Your last paragraph is again, absolutely correct. How do we fix our confidence in government? One thing I would suggest is there should be a penalty for lying. If a company advertises a product and says “this product will grow hair on your head” and if fact it does not grow hair, there is a penalty: fines, retractions, etc. But if a politician or regular citizen proclaims “death panels will pull the plug on grandma” which is an absolute lie, there is no penalty. Lying and misleading is the name of the game in US politics. How do we fix that?